Library  of  the  Theological  Seminary 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


Presented  by 

Dr.  Earl  A.  Pope 
Manson  Professor  of  Bible 

Lafayette  College 
The  Earl  A.  Pope  Collection 


BR85  .D788  1898 

Drummond,  Henry,  1851-1897. 

Ideal  life  :  addresses  hithe: 

to 

iiriDiihl  i  shed     / 


■CiJ/ 


'  7 


The  Ideal  Life 


THE 

IDEAL     LIFE 

Addresses  Hitherto  Unpublished 

BY 

HENRY   DRUMMOND 

With  Memorial  Sketches  by 
IAN    MACLAREN 

AND 

W.  ROBERTSON    NICOLL 


LIBRARY  OF  PRINCE 


AUG  2  7  zoo; 


THEOLOGICAL  SEM' 


New  York 

Dodd,  Mead  and  Company 
1898 


Copyright,  1897, 
By  the  North  American  Review  Publishing  Company. 

Copyright,  1897, 
By  Dodd,  Mead  and  Company. 


John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


Contents 


Page 

Introduction.    I i 

Introduction.     II 24 

Number 

I.     Ill-Temper 47 

II.    Why  Christ  must  depart 65 

III.  Going  to  the  Father 81 

IV.  The  Eccentricity  of  Religion  ....  96 
V.     "To  me  to  live  is  Christ" 112 

VI.     Clairvoyance 132 

VII.     The  Three  Facts  of  Sin 149 

VIII.    The  Three  Facts  of  Salvation    .    .    .  170 

IX.     "What  is  your  Life?" .  190 

X.     Marvel  not 212 

XI.     The  Man  after  God's  own  Heart    .     .  227 

XII.     Penitence 244 

XIII.  What  is  God's  Will? 261 

XIV.  The  Relation  of  the  Will  of  God  to 

Sanctification 283 

XV.     How  TO  know  the  Will  of  God  .     .     .  302 


Introductory  Note 


THE  addresses  which  make  up  this  volume 
were  written  by  Professor  Drummond  be- 
tween the  years  1876  and  1881,  and  are  now  pub- 
lished to  meet  the  wishes  of  those  who  heard 
some  of  them  delivered,  and  in  the  hope  that 
they  may  continue  his  work. 

They  were  never  prepared  for  publication,  and 
have  been  printed  from  his  manuscripts  with  a 
few  obvious  verbal  corrections,  A  few  paragraphs 
used  in  later  publications  have  been  retained. 

Of  the  memorial  sketches,  the  first  was  origi- 
nally published  in  the  "  Contemporary  Review," 
the  second  in  the  "  North  American  Review." 

December,  1897.  , 


Introduction 


PROFESSOR  DRUMMOND'S  influence  on 
his  contemporaries  is  not  to  be  meas- 
ured by  the  sale  of  his  books,  great  as  that  has 
been.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  living 
novelist  has  had  so  many  readers,  and  perhaps 
no  living  writer  has  been  so  eagerly  followed 
and  so  keenly  discussed  on  the  Continent  and  in 
America.  For  some  reason,  which  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  assign,  many  who  exercise  great  influ- 
ence at  home  are  not  appreciated  elsewhere.  It 
has  been  said,  for  example,  that  no  book  of 
Ruskin's  has  ever  been  translated  into  a  Con- 
tinental language,  and  though  such  a  negative 
is  obviously  dangerous,  it  is  true  that  Ruskin 
has  not  been  to  Europe  what  he  has  been  to 
England.  But  Professor  Drummond  had  the 
widest  vogue  from  Norway  to  Germany.  There 
was  a  time  when  scarcely  a  week  passed  in  Ger- 
many without  the  publication  of  a  book  or  pam- 
phlet in  which  his  views  were  canvassed.  In 
Scandinavia,  perhaps,  no  other  living  English- 
man was  so  widely  known.     In   every  part  of 


2  INTRODUCTION 

America  his  books  had  an  extraordinary  circu- 
lation. This  influence  reached  all  classes.  It 
was  strong  among  scientific  men,  whatever  may 
be  said  to  the  contrary.  Among  such  men  as 
Von  Moltke,  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour,  and  others 
belonging  to  the  governing  class,  it  was  stronger 
still.  It  penetrated  to  every  section  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  and  far  beyond  these  limits.  Still, 
when  this  is  said,  it  remains  true  that  his 
deepest  influence  was  personal  and  hidden.  In 
the  long  series  of  addresses  he  delivered  all  over 
the  world  he  brought  about  what  may  at  least 
be  called  a  crisis  in  the  lives  of  innumerable 
hearers.  He  received,  I  venture  to  say,  more 
of  the  confidences  of  people  untouched  by  the 
ordinary  work  of  the  Church  than  any  other  man 
of  his  time.  Men  and  women  came  to  him  in 
their  deepest  and  bitterest  perplexities.  To 
such  he  was  accessible,  and  both  by  personal 
interviews  and  by  correspondence,  gave  such 
help  as  he  could.  He  was  an  ideal  confessor. 
No  story  of  failure  daunted  or  surprised  him. 
For  every  one  he  had  a  message  of  hope ;  and, 
while  the  warm  friend  of  a  chosen  circle  and 
acutely  responsive  to  their  kindness,  he  did  not 
seem  to  lean  upon  his  friends.  He  himself  did 
not  ask  for  sympathy,  and  did  not  seem  to  need 
it.  The  innermost  secrets  of  his  life  were  be- 
tween himself  and  his  Saviour.  While  frank 
and  at  times  even  communicative,  he  had  noth- 
ing to  say  about  himself  or  about  those  who  had 


INTRODUCTION  3 

trusted  him.  There  are  multitudes  who  owed 
to  Henry  Drummond  all  that  one  man  can  owe 
to  another,  and  who  felt  such  a  thrill  pass 
through  them  at  the  news  of  his  death  as  they 
can  never  experience  again. 

Henry  Drummond  was  born  at  Stirling  in 
185 1.  He  was  surrounded  from  the  first  by 
powerful  religious  influences  of  the  evangelistic 
kind.  His  uncle,  Mr.  Peter  Drummond,  was 
the  founder  of  what  is  known  as  the  Stirling 
Tract  enterprise,  through  which  many  millions 
of  small  religious  publications  have  been  cir- 
culated through  the  world.  As  a  child  he  was 
remarkable  for  his  sunny  disposition  and  his 
sweet  temper,  while  the  religiousness  of  his 
nature  made  itself  manifest  at  an  early  period. 
I  do  not  gather,  however,  that  there  were  many 
auguries  of  his  future  distinction.  He  was 
thought  to  be  somewhat  desultory  and  indepen- 
dent in  his  work.  In  due  course  he  proceeded 
to  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  where  he  dis- 
tinguished himself  in  science,  but  in  nothing 
else.  He  gained,  I  believe,  the  medal  in  the 
geology  class.  But  like  many  students  who  do 
not  go  in  for  honours,  he  was  anything  but  idle. 
He  tells  us  himself  that  he  began  to  form  a 
library,  his  first  purchase  being  a  volume  of 
extracts  from  Ruskin's  works.  Ruskin  taught 
him  to  see  the  world  as  it  is,  and  it  soon  became 
a  new  world  to  him,  full  of  charm  and  loveli- 
ness.    He  learned  to  linger  beside  the  ploughed 


4  INTRODUCTION 

field,  and  revel  in  the  affluence  of  colour  and 
shade  which  were  to  be  seen  in  the  newly-turned 
furrows,  and  to  gaze  in  wonder  at  the  liquid 
amber  of  the  two  feet  of  air  above  the  brown 
earth.  Next  to  Ruskin  he  put  Emerson,  who 
all  his  life  powerfully  affected  both  his  teaching 
and  his  style.  Differing  as  they  did  in  many 
ways,  they  were  alike  in  being  optimists  with 
a  high  and  noble  conception  of  good,  but  with 
no  correspondingly  definite  conception  of  evil. 
Mr.  Henry  James  says  that  Emerson's  genius 
had  a  singular  thinness,  an  almost  touching 
lightness,  sparseness,  and  transparency  about  it. 
And  the  same  was  true,  in  a  measure,  of  Drum- 
mond's.  The  religious  writers  who  attracted 
him  were  Channing  and  F.  W.  Robertson. 
Channing  taught  him  to  believe  in  God,  the 
good  and  gracious  Sovereign  of  all  things. 
From  Robertson  he  learned  that  God  is  human, 
and  that  we  may  have  fellowship  with  Him  be- 
cause He  sympathises  with  us.  It  is  well  known 
that  Robertson  himself  was  a  warm  admirer  of 
Channing.  The  parallels  between  Robertson 
and  Channing  in  thought,  and  even  in  words, 
have  never  been  properly  drawn  out.  It  would 
be  a  gross  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  contact 
with  Robertson  and  Channing  was  the  begin- 
ning of  Drummond's  religious  life.  But  it  was 
through  them,  and  it  was  at  that  period  of  his 
studentship  that  he  began  to  take  possession  for 
himself  of  Christian  truth.     And  it  was  a  great 


INTRODUCTION  5 

secret  of  his  power  that  he  preached  nothing 
except  what  had  personally  come  home  to  him 
and  had  entered  into  his  heart  of  hearts.  His 
attitude  to  much  of  the  theology  in  which  he 
was  taught  was  that  not  of  denial,  but  of  respect- 
ful distance.  He  might  have  come  later  on  to 
appropriate  it  and  preach  it,  but  the  appropria- 
tion would  have  been  the  condition  of  the  preach- 
ing. His  mind  was  always  receptive.  Like 
Emerson,  he  was  an  excellent  listener.  He 
stood  always  in  a  position  of  hopeful  expectancy, 
and  regarded  each  delivery  of  a  personal  view  as 
a  new  fact  to  be  estimated  on  its  merits.  I  may 
add  that  he  was  a  warm  admirer  of  Mr.  R.  H. 
Hutton,  and  thought  his  essay  on  Goethe  the 
best  critical  piece  of  the  century.  He  used  to 
say  that,  like  Mr.  Hutton,  he  could  sympathise 
with  every  Church  but  the  Hard  Church. 

After  completing  his  University  course  he 
went  to  the  New  College,  Edinburgh,  to  be 
trained  for  the  ministry  of  the  Free  Church. 
The  time  was  critical.  The  Free  Church  had 
been  founded  in  a  time  of  intense  Evangelical 
faith  and  passion.  It  was  a  visible  sign  of  the 
reaction  against  Moderatism.  The  Moderates 
had  done  great  service  to  literature,  but  their 
sermons  were  favourably  represented  by  the 
solemn  fudge  of  Blair,  James  Macdonell,  the 
brilliant  Times  leader-writer,  who  carefully  ob- 
served from  the  position  of  an  outsider  the  eccle- 
siastical life  of  his  countrymen,    said  that  the 


6  INTRODUCTION 

Moderate  leaders  deliberately  set  themselves  to 
the  task  of  stripping  Scotch  Presbyterianism 
free  from  provincialism,  and  so  triumphant  were 
they  that  most  of  their  sermons  might  have 
been  preached  in  a  heathen  temple  as  fitly  as 
in  St.  Giles.  They  taught  the  moral  law  with 
politeness;  they  made  philosophy  the  handmaid 
of  Christianity  with  well-bred  moderation,  and 
they  so  handled  the  grimmer  tenets  of  Calvinism 
as  to  hurt  no  susceptibilities.  The  storm  of  the 
Disruption  blew  away  the  old  Moderates  from 
their  place  of  power,  and  men  like  Chalmers, 
Cunningham,  Candlish,  Welsh,  Guthrie,  Begg, 
and  the  other  leaders  of  the  Evangelicals,  more 
than  filled  their  place.  The  obvious  danger 
was  that  the  Free  Church  should  become  the 
home  of  bigotry  and  obscurantism.  This  danger 
was  not  so  great  at  first.  There  was  a  lull  in 
critical  and  theological  discussion,  and  men  were 
sure  of  their  ground.  The  large  and  generous 
spirit  of  Chalmers  impressed  itself  on  the  Church 
of  which  he  was  the  main  founder,  and  the  desire 
to  assert  the  influence  of  religion  in  science  and 
literature  in  all  the  field  of  knowledge  was  shown 
from  the  beginning.  For  example,  the  North 
BritisJi  Rcvieiv  was  the  organ  of  the  Free  Church, 
and  did  not  stand  much  behind  the  Ediiibursih 
and  the  Quarterly,  either  in  the  ability  of  its 
articles  or  in  the  distinction  of  many  of  its 
contributors.  But  especially  the  Free  Church 
showed  its  wisdom  by  founding  theological  sem- 


INTRODUCTION  7 

inaries,  and  filling  their  chairs  with  its  best 
men.  A  Professorship  of  Divinity  was  held  to 
be  a  higher  position  than  the  pastorate  of  any 
pulpit.  As  time  went  on,  however,  and  as  the 
tenets  of  the  Westminster  Evangelicanism  were 
more  and  more  formidably  assailed,  the  Free 
Church  came  in  danger  of  surrendering  its  intel- 
lectual life.  The  whisper  of  heresy  would  have 
damaged  a  minister  as  effectually  as  a  grave 
moral  charge.  Independent  thought  was  impa- 
tiently and  angrily  suppressed.  Macdonell  said, 
writing  in  the  Spectator  in  1874,  that  the  Free 
Church  was  being  intellectually  starved,  and  he 
pointed  out  that  the  Established  Church  was 
gaining  ground  under  the  leadership  of  such 
men  as  Principal  Tulloch  and  Dr.  Wallace,  who 
in  a  sense  represented  the  old  Moderates,  though 
they  were  as  different  from  them  as  this  age  is 
from  the  last.  The  Free  Church  was  apparently 
refusing  to  shape  the  dogmas  of  traditional 
Christianity  in  such  a  way  as  to  meet  the  subtle 
intellectual  and  moral  demands  of  an  essentially 
scientific  age.  There  was  an  apparent  unanimity 
in  the  Free  Church,  but  it  was  much  more 
apparent  than  real.  For  one  thing,  the  teach- 
ing of  some  of  the  professors  had  been  produc- 
ing its  influence.  Dr.  A.  B.  Davidson,  the 
recognised  master  of  Old  Testament  learning 
in  this  country,  a  man  who  joins  to  his  know- 
ledge imagination,  subtlety,  fer\'our,  and  a  rare 
power  of  style,  had  been  quietly  teaching  the 


8  INTRODUCTION 

best  men  amongst  his  students  that  the  old 
views  of  revelation  would  have  to  be  seriously 
altered.  He  did  not  do  this  so  much  directly  as 
indirectly,  and  I  think  there  was  a  period  when 
any  Free  Church  minister  who  asserted  the  ex- 
istence of  errors  in  the  Bible  would  have  been 
summarily  deposed.  The  abler  students  had 
been  taking  sessions  at  Germany,  and  had  thus 
escaped  from  the  narrowness  of  the  provincial 
coterie.  They  were  interested,  some  of  them  in 
literature,  some  in  science,  some  in  philosophy. 
At  the  New  College  they  discussed  in  their  theo- 
logical society  with  daring  and  freedom  the  prob- 
lems of  the  time.  A  crisis  was  sure  to  come, 
and  it  might  very  well  have  been  a  crisis  which 
would  have  broken  the  Church  in  pieces.  That 
it  did  not  was  due  largely  to  the  influence  of  one 
man  —  the  American  Evangelist,  Mr.  Moody. 

In  1873  Mr.  Moody  commenced  his  campaign 
in  the  Barclay  Free  Church,  Edinburgh.  A  few 
days  before,  Drummond  had  read  a  paper  to  the 
Theological  Society  of  his  college  on  Spiritual 
Diagnosis,  in  which  he  maintained  that  preach- 
ing was  not  the  most  important  thing,  but  that 
personal  dealing  with  those  in  anxiety  would 
yield  better  results.  In  other  words,  he  thought 
that  practical  religion  might  be  treated  as  an 
exact  science.  He  had  given  himself  to  scien- 
tific study  with  a  view  of  standing  for  the  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Science.  Moody  at  once  made  a 
deep  impression   on   Edinburgh,    and   attracted 


INTRODUCTION  9 

the  ablest  students.  He  missed  in  this  country 
a  sufficient  religious  provision  for  young  men, 
and  he  thought  that  young  men  could  best  be 
moulded  by  young  men.  With  his  keen  Amer- 
ican eye  he  perceived  that  Drummond  was  his 
best  instrument,  and  he  immediately  associated 
him  in  the  work.  It  had  almost  magical  results. 
From  the  very  first  Drummond  attracted  and 
deeply  moved  crowds,  and  the  issue  was  that  for 
two  years  he  gave  himself  to  this  work  of  evan- 
gelism in  England,  in  Scotland,  and  in  Ireland. 
During  this  period  he  came  to  know  the  life 
histories  of  young  men  in  all  classes.  He  made 
himself  a  great  speaker;  he  knew  how  to  seize 
the  critical  moment,  and  his  modesty,  his  refine- 
ment, his  gentle  and  generous  nature,  his  manli- 
ness, and  above  all,  his  profound  conviction, 
won  for  him  disciples  in  every  place  he  visited. 
His  companions  were  equally  busy  in  their  own 
lines,  and  in  this  way  the  Free  Church  was 
saved.  A  development  on  the  lines  of  Tulloch 
and  Wallace  was  impossible  for  the  Free  Church. 
Any  change  that  might  take  place  must  conserve 
the  vigorous  evangelical  life  of  which  it  had 
been  the  home.  The  change  did  take  place. 
Robertson  Smith,  who  was  by  far  the  first  man 
of  the  circle,  won,  at  the  sacrifice  of  his  own 
position,  toleration  for  Biblical  criticism,  and 
proved  that  an  advanced  critic  might  be  a  con- 
vinced and  fervent  evangelical.  Others  did 
something,   each   in  his  own  sphere,  and   it   is 


10  INTRODUCTION 

not  too  much  to  say  that  the  effects  have  been 
world-wide.  The  recent  writers  of  Scottish 
fiction  —  Barrie,  Crockett,  and  Ian  Maclaren  — 
were  all  children  of  the  Free  Church,  two  of 
them  being  ministers.  In  almost  every  depart- 
ment of  theological  science,  with  perhaps  the 
exception  of  Church  history,  Free  Churchmen 
have  made  contributions  which  rank  with  the 
most  important  of  the  day.  It  is  but  bare  jus- 
tice to  say  that  the  younger  generation  of  Free 
Churchmen  have  done  their  share  in  claiming 
that  Christianity  should  rule  in  all  the  fields  of 
culture,  that  the  Incarnation  hallows  every  de- 
partment of  human  thought  and  activity.  No 
doubt  the  claim  has  excited  some  hostility;  at 
the  same  time  the  general  public  has  rallied  in 
overwhelming  numbers  to  its  support,  and  any 
book  of  real  power  written  in  a  Christian  spirit 
has  now  an  audience  compared  with  which  that 
of  most  secular  writers  is  small. 

Even  at  that  time  Drummond's  evangelism  was 
not  of  the  ordinary  type.  When  he  had  com- 
pleted his  studies,  after  brief  intervals  of  work 
elsewhere,  he  found  his  professional  sphere  as 
lecturer  on  Natural  Science  in  the  Free  Church 
College  at  Glasgow.  There  he  came  under  the 
spell  of  Dr.  Marcus  Dods,  to  whom,  as  he  always 
testified,  he  owed  more  than  to  any  other  man. 
He  worked  in  a  mission  connected  with  Dr.  Dods' 
congregation,  and  there  preached  the  remarkable 
series  of  addresses  which  were  afterwards   pub- 


INTRODUCTION  ii 

Hshed  as  "  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World." 
The  book  appeared  in  1883,  and  the  author  would 
have  been  quite  satisfied  with  a  circulation  of 
1,000  copies.  In  England  alone  it  has  sold 
about  120,000  copies,  while  the  American  and 
foreign  editions  are  beyond  count.  There  is  a 
natural  prejudice  against  premature  reconcilia- 
tions between  science  and  religion.  Many  would 
say  with  Schiller:  "  Feindschaft  sei  zwischen 
euch,  noch  kommt  ein  Bundniss  zu  friihe:  For- 
schet-beide  getrennt,  so  wird  die  Wahrheit 
erkannt."  In  order  to  reconcile  science  and 
religion  finally  you  must  be  prepared  to  say 
what  is  science  and  what  is  religion.  Till  that 
is  done  any  synthesis  must  be  premature,  and 
any  book  containing  it  must  in  due  time  be 
superseded.  Drummond  was  not  blind  to  this, 
and  yet  he  saw  that  something  had  to  be  done. 
Evolution  was  becoming  more  than  a  theory — it 
was  an  atmosphere.  Through  the  teaching  of 
evolutionists  a  subtle  change  was  passing  over 
morals,  politics,  and  religion.  Compromises  had 
been  tried  and  failed.  The  division  of  territory 
desired  by  some  was  found  to  be  impossible. 
Drummond  did  not  begin  with  doctrine  and 
work  downwards  to  nature.  He  ran  up  natural 
law  as  far  as  it  would  go,  and  then  the  doctrine 
burst  into  view.  It  was  contended  by  the 
lamented  Aubrey  Moore  that  the  proper  thing 
is  to  begin  with  doctrine.  While  Moore  would 
have  admitted  that  science  cannot   be  defined, 


12  INTRODUCTION 

that  even  the  problem  of  evolution  is  one  of 
which  as  yet  we  hardly  know  the  outlines,  he 
maintained  that  the  first  step  was  to  begin  with 
the  theology  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  that  it 
was  impossible  to  defend  Christianity  on  the  basis 
of  anything  less  than  the  whole  of  the  Church's 
creed.  Drummond  did  not  attempt  this.  He 
declined,  for  example,  to  consider  the  relation 
of  evolution  to  the  Fall  and  to  the  Pauline 
doctrine  of  redemption.  What  he  maintained 
was  that,  if  you  begin  at  the  natural  laws,  you 
end  in  the  spiritual  laws ;  and  in  a  series  of 
impressive  illustrations  he  brought  out  his  facts 
of  science,  some  of  them  characteristic  doctrines 
of  Calvinism  —  brought  them  out  sternly  and  un- 
disguisedly.  By  many  of  the  orthodox  he  was 
welcomed  as  a  champion,  but  others  could  not 
acquiesce  in  his  assumption  of  evolution,  and 
regarded  him  as  more  dangerous  than  an  open 
foe.  The  book  was  riddled  with  criticisms  from 
every  side.  Drummond  himself  never  replied  to 
these,  but  he  gave  his  approval  to  an  anonymous 
defence  which  appeared  in  the  Expositor}  and  it 
is  worth  while  recalling  briefly  the  main  points, 
(i)  His  critics  rejected  his  main  position,  which 
was  not  that  the  spiritual  laws  are  analogous  to 
the  natural  laws,  but  that  they  are  the  same  laws. 
To  this  he  replied  that  if  he  had  not  shown  iden- 
tity, he  had  done  nothing;  but  he  admitted  that 
the  application  of  natural  law  to  the  spiritual 
1  Third  Series,  Vol.  i. 


INTRODUCTION  13 

world  had  decided  and  necessary  limits,  the 
principle  not  applying  to  those  provinces  of  the 
spiritual  world  most  remote  from  human  experi- 
ence. He  adhered  to  the  distinction  between 
nature  and  grace,  but  he  thought  of  grace  also 
as  forming  part  of  the  divine  whole  of  nature, 
which  is  an  emanation  from  the  recesses  of  the 
divine  wisdom,  power  and  love.  (2)  His  use  of 
the  law  of  biogenesis  was  severely  attacked  alike 
from  the  scientific  and  the  religious  side.  Even 
Christian  men  of  science  thought  he  had  laid 
dangerous  stress  on  the  principle  omne  vivuin 
ex  vivo,  and  declined  to  say  that  biogenesis  was 
as  certain  as  gravitation.  They  further  affirmed, 
and  surely  with  reason,  that  the  principle  is  not 
essential  to  faith.  From  the  religious  side  it  was 
urged  that  he  had  grossly  exaggerated  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  spiritual  man  and  the 
natural  man,  and  that  he  ignored  the  suscepti- 
bilities or  affinities  of  the  natural  man  for  spirit- 
ual influence.  The  reply  was  that  he  had  asserted 
the  capacity  for  God  very  strongly.  "  The  cham- 
ber is  not  only  ready  to  receive  the  new  life,  but 
the  Guest  is  expected,  and  till  He  comes  is  missed. 
Till  then  the  soul  longs  and  yearns,  wastes  and 
pines,  waving  its  tentacles  piteously  in  the  empty 
air,  or  feeling  after  God  if  so  be  that  it  may  find 
Him."  (3)  As  for  the  charge  that  he  could  not 
reconcile  his  own  statements  as  to  divine  efficiency 
and  human  responsibility,  it  was  pointed  out  that 
this  was  only  a  phase  of  the  larger  difficulty  of 


14  INTRODUCTION 

reconciling  the  exercise  of  the  divine  will  with 
the  freedom  of  the  human  will.  What  he  main- 
tained, in  common  with  Augustinian  and  Puritan 
theology,  was  that  in  every  case  of  regeneration 
there  is  an  original  intervention  of  God.  (4)  The 
absence  of  reference  to  the  Atonement  was  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  belonged  to  a  region 
inaccessible  to  the  new  method,  lying  in  the 
depths  of  the  Divine  Mind,  and  only  to  be  made 
known  by  revelation.  (5)  The  charge  that  he 
taught  the  annihilation  of  the  unregenerate  was 
repudiated.  The  unregenerate  had  not  fulfilled 
the  conditions  of  eternal  life;  but  that  does  not 
show  that  they  may  not  exist  through  eternity, 
for  they  exist  at  present,  although  in  Mr.  Drum- 
mond's  sense  they  do  not  live.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  many  of  the  objections  directed  against  his 
book  applied  equally  to  every  form  of  what  may 
be  called  evangelical  Calvinism.  But  I  think  that 
the  main  impression  produced  on  competent 
judges  was  that  the  volume,  though  written  with 
brilliant  clearness  of  thought  and  imagination, 
and  full  of  the  Christian  spirit,  did  not  give  their 
true  place  to  personality,  freedom,  and  conscience, 
terms  against  which  physical  science  may  even  be 
said  to  direct  its  whole  artillery,  so  far  as  it  tries 
to  depersonalise  man,  but  terms  in  which  the  very 
life  of  morality  and  religion  is  bound  up.  Per- 
haps Drummond  himself  came  ultimately  to  take 
this  view.  In  any  case,  Matthew  Arnold's  verdict 
will  stand :   "  What  is  certain  is  that  the  author  of 


INTRODUCTION  15 

the   book  has  a  genuine  love  of  reh'gion  and  a 
genuine  religious  experience." 

His  lectureship  in  Glasgow  was  constituted  into 
a  professor's  chair,  and  he  occupied  it  for  the  rest 
of  his  life.  His  work  gave  him  considerable  free- 
dom. During  a  few  months  of  the  year  he  lec- 
tured on  geology  and  botany,  giving  also  scattered 
discourses  on  biological  problems  and  the  study 
of  evolution.  He  had  two  examinations  in  the 
year,  the  first,  which  he  called  the  "stupidity" 
examination,  to  test  the  men's  knowledge  of  com- 
mon things,  asking  such  questions  as,  "  Why  is 
grass  green?"  "Why  is  the  sea  salt?  "  "  Why  is 
the  heaven  blue?"  "What  is  a  leaf?"  etc.,  etc. 
After  this  Socratic  inquiry  he  began  his  teaching, 
and  examined  his  students  at  the  end.  He  taught 
in  a  class-room  that  was  also  a  museum,  always 
had  specimens  before  him  while  lecturing,  and 
introduced  his  students  to  the  use  of  scientific 
instruments,  besides  taking  them  for  geological 
excursions.  In  his  time  of  leisure  he  travelled 
very  widely.  He  paid  three  visits  to  America, 
and  one  to  Australia.  He  also  took  the  journey 
to  Africa  commemorated  in  his  brilliant  little 
book,  "  Tropical  Africa,"  a  work  in  which  his  in- 
sight, his  power  of  selection,  his  keen  observation, 
his  fresh  style,  and  his  charming  personality  ap- 
pear to  the  utmost  advantage.  It  was  praised  on 
every  side,  though  Mr.  Stanley  made  a  criticism 
to  which  Drummond  gave  an  effective  and  good- 
humoured  retort.     During  these  journeys  and  on 


i6  INTRODUCTION 

other  occasions  at  home  he  continued  his  work  of 
evangehsm.  He  addressed  himself  mainly  to 
students,  on  whom  he  had  a  great  influence,  and 
for  years  went  every  week  to  Edinburgh  for  the 
purpose  of  delivering  Sunday  evening  religious 
addresses  to  University  men.  He  was  invariably 
followed  by  crowds,  the  majority  of  whom  were 
medical  students.  He  also,  on  several  occasions, 
delivered  addresses  in  London  to  social  and  po- 
litical leaders,  the  audience  including  many  of  the 
most  eminent  men  of  the  time.  The  substance 
of  these  addresses  appeared  in  his  famous  book- 
lets, beginning  with  the  "  Greatest  Thing  in  the 
World,"  and  it  may  be  worth  while  to  say  some- 
thing of  their  teaching.  Mr.  Drummond  did  not 
begin  in  the  conventional  way.  He  seemed  to  do 
without  all  that,  to  common  Christianity,  is  indis- 
pensable. He  approached  the  subject  so  disin- 
terestedly, with  such  an  entire  disregard  of  its  one 
presupposition,  sin,  that  many  could  never  get  on 
common  ground  with  him.  He  entirely  omitted 
that  theology  of  the  Cross  which  had  been  the 
substance  hitherto  of  evangelistic  addresses.  No- 
body could  say  that  his  gospel  was  "  arterial  "  or 
"  ensanguined."  In  the  first  place,  he  had,  like 
Emerson,  a  profound  belief  in  the  powers  of  the 
human  will.  That  word  of  Spinoza  which  has 
been  called  a  text  in  the  scriptures  of  humanity 
might  have  been  his  motto.  "  He  who  desires  to 
assist  other  people  ...  in  common  conversations 
will  avoid  referring  to  the  vices  of  men,  and  will 


INTRODUCTION  17 

take  care  only  sparingly  to  speak  of  human  im- 
potence, while  he  will  talk  largely  of  human  vir- 
tue or  power,  and  of  the  way  by  which  it  may  be 
made  perfect,  so  that  men  being  moved,  not  by 
fear  or  aversion,  but  by  the  effect  of  joy,  may 
endeavour,  as  much  as  they  can,  to  live  under  the 
rule  of  reason."  With  this  sentence  may  be 
coupled  its  echo  in  the  "  Confessions  of  a  Beauti- 
ful Soul":  "It  is  so  much  the  more  our  duty, 
not  like  the  advocate  of  the  evil  spirit,  always  to 
keep  our  eyes  fixed  upon  the  nakedness  and 
weakness  of  our  nature,  but  rather  to  seek  out  all 
those  perfections  through  which  we  can  make 
good  our  claims  to  a  likeness  to  God."  But 
along  with  this  went  a  passionate  devotion  to 
Jesus  Christ.  Emerson  said,  "  The  man  has  never 
lived  who  can  feed  us  ever."  Drummond  main- 
tained with  absolute  conviction  that  Christ  could 
for  ever  and  ever  meet  all  the  needs  of  the 
soul.  In  his  criticism  of  "  Ecce  Homo,"  Mr. 
Gladstone  answered  the  question  whether  the 
Christian  preacher  is  ever  justified  in  delivering 
less  than  a  full  Gospel.  He  argued  that  to  go 
back  to  the  very  beginning  of  Christianity  might 
be  a  method  eminently  suited  to  the  needs  of  the 
present  generation.  The  ship  of  Christianity  was 
overloaded,  not  perhaps  for  fair  weather,  but  when 
a  gale  came  the  mass  strained  over  to  the  leeward. 
Drummond  asked  his  hearers  to  go  straight  into 
the  presence  of  Christ,  not  as  He  now  presents 
Himself  to  us,  bearing  in  His  hand  the  long  roll 


1 8  INTRODUCTION 

of  His  conquests,  but  as  He  offered  Himself  to 
the  Jew  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  or  in  the  syna- 
gogue of  Capernaum,  or  in  the  temple  of  Jerusa- 
lem. He  declined  to  take  every  detail  of  the 
Christianity  in  possession  as  part  of  the  whole. 
He  denied  that  the  rejection  of  the  non-essential 
involved  parting  with  the  essential,  and  he  strove 
to  go  straight  to  the  fountain-head  itself.  What- 
ever criticisms  may  be  passed  it  will  be  allowed 
that  few  men  in  the  century  have  done  so  much 
to  bring  their  hearers  and  readers  to  the  feet  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  has  been  said  of  Carlyle  that 
the  one  living  ember  of  the  old  Puritanism  that 
still  burned  vividly  in  his  mind  was  the  belief  that 
honest  and  true  men  might  find  power  in  God  to 
alter  things  for  the  better.  Drummond  believed 
with  his  whole  heart  that  men  might  find  power 
in  Christ  to  change  their  lives. 

He  had  seven  or  eight  months  of  the  year  at 
his  disposal,  and  spent  very  little  of  them  in  his 
beautiful  home  at  Glasgow.  He  wandered  all 
over  the  world,  and  in  genial  human  intercourse 
made  his  way  to  the  hearts  of  rich  and  poor. 
He  was  as  much  at  home  in  addressing  a  meet- 
ing of  working  men  as  in  speaking  at  Grosvenor 
House.  He  had  fastidious  tastes,  was  always 
faultlessly  dressed,  and  could  appreciate  the  sur- 
roundings of  civilisation.  But  he  could  at  a 
moment's  notice  throw  them  all  off  and  be  per- 
fectly happy.  As  a  traveller  in  Africa  he  cheer- 
fully endured  much  privation.      He  excelled  in 


INTRODUCTION  19 

many  sports  and  was  a  good  shot.  In  some  ways 
he  was  hke  Lavengro,  and  I  will  say  that  some 
parts  of  "  Lavengro  "  would  be  unintelligible  to 
me  unless  I  had  known  Drummond.  Although 
he  refused  to  quarrel,  and  had  a  thoroughly  loyal 
and  deeply  affectionate  nature,  he  was  yet  in- 
dependent of  others.  He  never  married.  He 
never  undertook  any  work  to  which  he  did  not 
feel  himself  called.  Although  he  had  the  most 
tempting  offers  from  editors,  nothing  would  in- 
duce him  to  write  unless  the  subject  attracted 
him,  and  even  then  he  was  unwilling.  Although 
he  had  great  facility  he  never  presumed  upon  it. 
He  wrote  brightly  and  swiftly,  and  would  have 
made  an  excellent  journalist.  But  everything  he 
published  was  elaborated  with  the  most  scrupu- 
lous care.  I  have  never  seen  manuscripts  so 
carefully  revised  as  his.  All  he  did  was  appar- 
ently done  with  ease,  but  there  was  immense 
labour  behind  it.  Although  in  orders  he  neither 
used  the  title  nor  the  dress  that  go  with  them, 
but  preferred  to  regard  himself  as  a  layman.  He 
had  a  deep  sense  of  the  value  of  the  Church  and 
its  work,  but  I  think  was  not  himself  connected 
with  any  Church,  and  never  attended  public  wor- 
ship unless  he  thought  the  preacher  had  some 
message  for  him.  He  seemed  to  be  invariably 
in  good  spirits,  and  invariably  disengaged.  He 
was  always  ready  for  any  and  every  office  of 
friendship.  It  should  be  said  that,  though  few 
men  were  more    criticised  or  misconceived,  he 


20  INTRODUCTION 

himself  never  wrote  an  unkind  word  about  any- 
one, never  retaliated,  never  bore  malice,  and  could 
do  full  justice  to  the  abilities  and  character  of  his 
opponents.  I  have  just  heard  that  he  exerted 
himself  privately  to  secure  an  important  appoint- 
ment for  one  of  his  most  trenchant  critics,  and 
was  successful. 

For  years  he  had  been  working  quietly  at  his 
last  and  greatest  book,  "  The  Ascent  of  Man." 
The  chapters  were  first  delivered  as  the  Lowell 
Lectures  in  Boston,  where  they  attracted  great 
crowds.  The  volume  was  published  in  1894, 
and  though  its  sale  was  large,  exceeding  20,000 
copies,  it  did  not  command  his  old  public.  This 
was  due  very  much  to  the  obstinacy  with  which 
he  persisted  in  selling  it  at  a  net  price,  a  proceed- 
ing which  offended  the  booksellers,  who  had 
hoped  to  profit  much  from  its  sale.  The  work 
is  much  the  most  important  he  has  left  us.  It 
was  an  endeavour,  as  has  been  said,  to  engraft 
an  evolutionary  sociology  and  ethic  upon  a  bio- 
logical basis.  The  fundamental  doctrine  of  the 
struggle  of  life  leads  to  an  individualistic  sys- 
tem in  which  the  moral  side  of  nature  has  no 
place.  Professor  Drummond  contended  that  the 
currently  accepted  theory,  being  based  on  an  ex- 
clusive study  of  the  conditions  of  nutrition,  took 
account  of  only  half  the  truth.  With  nutrition 
he  associated,  as  a  second  factor,  the  function  of 
reproduction,  the  struggle  for  the  life  of  others, 
and  maintained  that  this  was  of  co-ordinate  rank 


INTRODUCTION  21 

as  a  force  in  cosmic  evolution.  Though  others 
had  recognised  altruism  as  modifying  the  opera- 
tion of  egoism,  Mr.  Drummond  did  more.  He 
tried  to  indicate  the  place  of  altruism  as  the  out- 
come of  those  processes  whereby  the  species  is 
multiplied,  and  its  bearing  on  the  evolution  of 
ethics.  He  desired,  in  other  words,  a  unification 
of  concept,  the  filling  up  of  great  gulfs  that  had 
seemed  to  be  fixed.  "  If  nature  be  the  garment 
of  God,  it  is  woven  without  seam  throughout;  if 
a  revelation  of  God,  it  is  the  same  yesterday,  to- 
day, and  for  ever;  if  the  expression  of  His  will, 
there  is  in  it  no  variableness  nor  shadow  of  turn- 
ing." After  sketching  the  stages  of  the  process 
of  evolution,  physical  and  ethical,  he  develops  his 
central  idea  in  the  chapter  on  the  struggle  for  the 
life  of  others,  and  then  deals  with  the  higher 
stages  of  the  development  of  altruism  as  a  modi- 
fying factor.  The  book  was  mercilessly  criticised* 
but  I  believe  that  no  one  has  attempted  to  deny  the 
accuracy  and  the  beauty  of  his  scientific  descrip- 
tions. Further,  not  a  few  eminent  scientific  men, 
like  Professor  Gairdner  and  Professor  Macalister, 
have  seen  in  it  at  least  the  germ  out  of  which 
much  may  come.  One  of  its  severest  critics,  Dr. 
Dallinger,  considers  that  nature  is  non-moral,  and 
that  religion  begins  with  Christ.  No  man  hath 
seen  God  at  any  time  —  this  is  what  nature  cer- 
tifies. The  only  begotten  Son  of  the  Father,  He 
hath  declared  Him  —  this  is  the  message  of  Chris- 
tianity.    But  there  are  many  religious  minds,  and 


22  INTRODUCTION 

some  scientific  minds,  convinced,  in  spite  of  all 
the  difficulties,  that  natural  law  must  be  moral, 
and  very  loth  to  admit  a  hopeless  dualism  be- 
tween the  physical  and  the  moral  order  of  the 
world.  They  say  that  the  whole  force  of  evolu- 
tion directs  our  glance  forward,  and  that  its  motto 
is  XPV  'T'e'Xo9  opav. 

With  the  publication  of  this  book  Drummond's 
career  as  a  public  teacher  virtually  ended.  He 
who  had  never  known  an  illness,  who  apparently 
had  been  exempted  from  care  and  sorrow,  was 
prostrated  by  a  painful  and  mysterious  malady. 
One  of  his  kind  physicians.  Dr.  Freeland  Barbour, 
informs  me  that  Mr.  Drummond  suffered  from  a 
chronic  affection  of  the  bones.  It  maimed  him 
greatly.  He  was  laid  on  his  back  for  more  than 
a  year,  and  had  both  arms  crippled,  so  that 
reading  was  not  a  pleasure  and  writing  almost 
impossible.  For  a  long  time  he  suffered  acute 
pain.  It  was  then  that  some  who  had  greatly 
misconceived  him  came  to  a  truer  judgment  of 
the  man.  Those  who  had  often  found  the  road 
rough  had  looked  askance  at  Drummond  as  a 
spoiled  child  of  fortune,  ignorant  of  life's  real 
meaning.  But  when  he  was  struck  down  in  his 
prime,  at  the  very  height  of  his  happiness,  when 
there  was  appointed  for  him,  to  use  his  own 
words,  "  a  waste  of  storm  and  tumult  before  he 
reached  the  shore,"  it  seemed  as  if  his  suffer- 
ings liberated  and  revealed  the  forces  of  his  soul. 


INTRODUCTION  23 

The  spectacle  of  his  long  struggle  with  a  mortal 
disease  was  something  more  than  impressive. 
Those  who  saw  him  in  his  illness  saw  that,  as  the 
physical  life  flickered  low,  the  spiritual  energy- 
grew.  Always  gentle  and  considerate,  he  became 
even  more  careful,  more  tender,  more  thoughtful, 
more  unselfish.  He  never  in  any  way  complained. 
His  doctors  found  it  very  difficult  to  get  him  to 
talk  of  his  illness.  It  was  strange  and  painful, 
but  inspiring,  to  see  his  keenness,  his  mental 
elasticity,  his  universal  interest.  Dr.  Barbour 
says :  "  I  have  never  seen  pain  or  weariness,  or 
the  being  obliged  to  do  nothing,  more  entirely 
overcome,  treated,  in  fact,  as  if  they  were  not. 
The  end  came  suddenly  from  failure  of  the  heart. 
Those  with  him  received  only  a  few  hours'  warn- 
ing of  his  critical  condition."  It  was  not  like 
death.  He  lay  on  his  couch  in  the  drawing-room, 
and  passed  away  in  his  sleep,  with  the  sun  shining 
in  and  the  birds  singing  at  the  open  window. 
There  was  no  sadness  nor  farewell.  It  recalled 
what  he  himself  said  of  a  friend's  death  —  "put- 
ting by  the  well-worn  tools  without  a  sigh,  and 
expecting  elsewhere  better  work  to  do." 

W.  Robertson  Nicoll. 


II 

E  had  been  in  many  places  over  the  world 
and  seen  strange  sights,  and  taken  his 
share  in  various  works,  and,  being  the  man  he 
was,  it  came  to  pass  of  necessity  that  he  had  many 
friends.  Some  of  them  were  street  arabs,  some 
were  negroes,  some  were  medicals,  some  were 
evangelists,  some  were  scientists,  some  were  theo- 
logians, some  were  nobles.  Between  each  one 
and  Drummond  there  was  some  affinity,  and  each 
could  tell  his  own  story  about  his  friend.  It  will 
be  interesting  to  hear  what  Professor  Greenfield 
or  Mr.  Moody  may  have  to  say;  but  one  man, 
with  profound  respect  for  such  eminent  persons, 
would  prefer  to  have  a  study  of  Drummond  by 
Moolu,  his  African  retainer.  Drummond  believed 
in  Moolu,  not  because  he  was  "pious"  —  which 
he  was  not — but  because  "he  did  his  duty  and 
never  told  a  lie."  From  the  chief's  point  of  view, 
Moolu  had  the  final  virtue  of  a  clansman  —  he  was 
loyal  and  faithful :  his  chief,  for  that  expedition, 
had  beyond  most  men  the  necessary  endowment 
of  a  leader,  a  magnetic  personality.  It  is  under- 
stood that  Drummond's  life  is  to  be  written  at 
large   by  a   friend,    in   whose    capable    and   wise 


INTRODUCTION  25 

hands  it  will  receive  full  justice ;  but  in  the  mean- 
time it  may  not  be  unbecoming  that  one  should 
pay  his  tribute  who  has  his  own  qualification  for 
this  work  of  love.  It  is  not  that  he  is  able  to 
appreciate  to  the  full  the  man's  wonderful  genius, 
or  accurately  to  estimate  his  contributions  to 
scientific  and  religious  thought  —  this  will  be 
done  by  more  distinguished  friends — but  that 
he  knew  Drummond  constantly  and  intimately 
from  boyhood  to  his  death.  If  one  has  known 
any  friend  at  school  and  college,  and  in  the 
greater  affairs  of  life  has  lived  with  him,  argued 
with  him,  prayed  with  him,  had  his  sympathy  in 
the  supreme  moments  of  joy  and  sorrow,  has  had 
every  experience  of  friendship  except  one — it 
was  not  possible  to  quarrel  with  Drummond, 
although  you  might  be  the  hottest-tempered  Celt 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  —  then  he  may  not  under- 
stand the  value  of  his  friend's  work,  but  at  any 
rate  he  understands  his  friend.  As  one  who  knew 
Henry  Drummond  at  first  hand,  my  desire  is  to 
tell  what  manner  of  man  he  was  in  all  honesty 
and  without  eulogy.  If  any  one  be  offended 
then,  let  him  believe  that  I  wrote  what  I  have 
seen,  and  if  any  one  be  incredulous,  then  I  can 
only  say  that  he  did  not  know  Drummond. 

His  body  was  laid  to  rest  a  few  weeks  ago,  on 
a  wet  and  windy  March  day,  in  the  most  romantic 
of  Scottish  cemeteries,  and  the  funeral,  on  its  way 
from  the  home  of  his  boyhood  to  the  Castle  Rock 
of  Stirling,  passed  the    King's  Park.     It  was  in 


26  INTRODUCTION 

that  park  more  than  thirty  years  ago  that  I  first 
saw  Drummond,  and  on  our  first  meeting  he  pro- 
duced the  same  effect  as  he  did  all  his  after  life. 
The  sun  was  going  down  behind  Ben  Lomond, 
in  the  happy  summer  time,  touching  with  gold 
the  gray  old  castle,  deepening  the  green  upon  the 
belt  of  trees  which  fringed  the  eastern  side  of 
the  park,  and  filling  the  park  itself  with  soft,  mel- 
low light.  A  cricket  match  between  two  schools 
had  been  going  on  all  day  and  was  coming  to  an 
end,  and  I  had  gone  out  to  see  the  result  —  being  a 
new  arrival  in  Stirling,  and  full  of  curiosity.  The 
two  lads  at  the  wickets  were  in  striking  contrast  — 
one  heavy,  stockish,  and  determined,  who  slogged 
powerfully  and  had  scored  well  for  his  side  ;  the 
other  nimble,  alert,  graceful,  who  had  a  pretty 
but  uncertain  play.  The  slogger  was  forcing 
the  running  in  order  to  make  up  a  heavy  leeway, 
and  compelled  his  partner  to  run  once  too  often. 
"It's  all  right,  and  you  fellows  are  not  to  cry 
shame"  —  this  was  what  he  said  as  he  joined  his 
friends  —  "Buchanan  is  playing  Ai,  and  that  hit 
ought  to  have  been  a  four ;  I  messed  the  running." 
It  was  good  form,  of  course,  and  what  any  decent 
lad  would  want  to  say,  but  there  was  an  accent  of 
gaiety  and  a  certain  air  which  was  very  taking. 
Against  that  group  of  clumsy,  unformed,  awkward 
Scots  lads  this  bright,  straight,  living  figure  stood 
in  relief,  and  as  he  moved  about  the  field  my  eyes 
followed  him,  and  in  my  boyish  and  dull  mind  I 
had  a  sense  that  he  was  a  type  by  himself,  a  visitor 


INTRODUCTION  27 

of  finer  breed  than  those  among  whom  he  moved. 
By-and-by  he  mounted  a  friend's  pony  and  gal- 
loped along  the  race-course  in  the  park  till  one 
only  saw  a  speck  of  white  in  the  sunlight,  and  still 
I  watched  in  wonder  and  fascination  —  only  a  boy 
of  thirteen  or  so,  and  dull  —  till  he  came  back,  in 
time  to  cheer  the  slogger  who  had  pulled  off  the 
match  —  with  three  runs  to  spare — and  carried 
his  bat. 

"  Well  played,  old  chap ! "  the  pure,  clear, 
joyous  note  rang  out  on  the  evening  air;  "finest 
thing  you  Ve  ever  done,"  while  the  strong-armed, 
heavy-faced  slogger  stood  still  and  looked  at  him 
in  admiration,  and  made  amends.  "  I  say,  Drum- 
mond,  it  was  my  blame  you  were  run  out.  .  .  ." 
Drummond  was  his  name,  and  some  one  said 
"  Henry."     So  I  first  saw  my  friend. 

What  impressed  me  that  pleasant  evening  in 
the  days  of  long  ago  I  can  now  identify.  It  was 
the  lad's  distinction,  an  inherent  quality  of  ap- 
pearance and  manner  of  character  and  soul 
which  marked  him  and  made  him  solitary. 
What  happened  with  one  strange  lad  that  even- 
ing befell  all  kinds  of  people  who  met  Drummond 
in  later  years.  They  were  at  once  arrested,  in- 
terested, fascinated  by  the  very  sight  of  the  man, 
and  could  not  take  their  eyes  off  him.  Like  a 
picture  of  the  first  order  among  ordinary  portraits 
he  unconsciously  put  his  neighbours  at  a  disad- 
vantage. One  did  not  realise  how  commonplace 
and  colourless  other  men  were  till  they  stood  side 


28  INTRODUCTION 

by  side  with  Drummond.  Upon  a  platform  of 
evangelists,  or  sitting  among  divinity  students  in 
a  dingy  classroom,  or  cabined  in  the  wooden  re- 
spectability of  an  ecclesiastical  court,  or  standing 
in  a  crowd  of  passengers  at  a  railway  station,  he 
suggested  golden  embroidery  upon  hodden  gray. 
It  was  as  if  the  prince  of  one's  imagination  had 
dropped  in  among  common  folk.  He  reduced 
us  all  to  the  peasantry. 

Drummond  was  a  handsome  man,  such  as  you 
could  not  match  in  ten  days'  journey,  with  deli- 
cately cut  features,  rich  auburn  hair,  and  a  cer- 
tain carriage  of  nobility,  but  the  distinctive  and 
commanding  feature  of  his  face  was  his  eye.  No 
photograph  could  do  it  justice,  and  very  often 
photographs  have  done  it  injustice,  by  giving  the 
idea  of  staringness.  His  eye  was  not  bold  or 
fierce ;  it  was  tender  and  merciful.  But  it  had  a 
power  and  hold  which  were  little  else  than  irre- 
sistible and  almost  supernatural.  When  you 
talked  with  Drummond,  he  did  not  look  at  you 
and  out  of  the  window  alternately,  as  is  the  usual 
manner;  he  never  moved  his  eyes,  and  gradually 
their  penetrating  gaze  seemed  to  reach  and  en- 
compass your  soul.  It  was  as  Plato  imagined  it 
would  be  in  the  judgment;  one  soul  was  in  con- 
tact with  another  —  nothing  between.  No  man 
could  be  double,  or  base,  or  mean,  or  impure  be- 
fore that  eye.  His  influence,  more  than  that  of 
any  man  I  have  ever  met,  was  mesmeric — which 
means  that  while  other  men  affect  their  fellows 


INTRODUCTION  29 

by  speech  and  example,  he  seized  one  directly 
by  his  living  personality.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
he  had  given  much  attention  to  the  occult  arts, 
and  was  at  one  time  a  very  successful  mesmerist. 
It  will  still  be  remembered  by  some  college  com- 
panions how  he  had  one  student  so  entirely  under 
his  power  that  the  man  would  obey  him  on  the 
street  and  surrender  his  watch  without  hesitation, 
and  it  was  told  how  Drummond  laid  a  useful  in- 
junction on  a  boy  in  a  house  where  he  was  staying, 
and  the  boy  obeyed  it  so  persistently  afterwards 
that  Dnmimond  had  to  write  and  set  him  free. 
Quite  sensible  and  unromantic  people  grew  un- 
easy in  his  presence,  and  roused  themselves  to 
resistance  —  as  one  might  do  who  recognised  a 
magician  and  feared  his  spell. 

One  sometimes  imagines  life  as  a  kind  of  gas 
of  which  our  bodies  are  the  vessels,  and  it  is  evi- 
dent that  a  few  are  much  more  richly  charged 
than  their  fellows.  Most  people  simply  exist 
completing  their  tale  of  work —  not  a  grain  over; 
doing  their  measured  mile  —  not  an  inch  beyond ; 
thinking  along  the  beaten  track  —  never  tempted 
to  excursions.  Here  and  there  in  the  world  you 
come  across  a  person  in  whom  life  is  exuberant 
and  overflowing,  a  force  which  cannot  be  tamed 
or  quenched.  Drummond  was  such  an  one,  the 
most  vital  man  I  ever  saw,  who  never  loitered, 
never  wearied,  never  was  conventional,  pedantic, 
formal,  who  simply  revelled  in  the  fulness  of  life. 
He  was  so  radiant  with  life  that  ordinary  people 


30  INTRODUCTION 

showed  pallid  beside  him,  and  shrank  from  him 
or  were  attracted  and  received  virtue  out  of  him. 
Like  one  coming  in  from  the  Hght  and  open  air 
into  a  stuffy  room  where  a  company  had  been 
sitting  with  closed  windows,  Drummond  burst 
into  bloodless  and  unhealthy  coteries,  bringing 
with  him  the  very  breath  of  heaven. 

He  was  the  Evangelist  to  thoughtful  men  — 
over  women  he  had  far  less  power  —  and  his 
strength  lay  in  his  personality.  Without  anec- 
dotes or  jokes,  or  sensationalism  or  doctrine, 
without  eloquence  or  passion,  he  moved  young 
men  at  his  will  because  his  message  was  life,  and 
he  was  its  illustration.  His  words  fell  one  by  one 
with  an  indescribable  awe  and  solemnity,  in  the 
style  of  the  Gospels,  and  reached  the  secret 
place  of  the  soul.  Nothing  more  unlike  the 
ordinary  evangelistic  address  could  be  imagined : 
it  was  so  sane,  so  persuasive,  so  mystical,  so 
final.  It  almost  followed,  therefore,  that  he  was 
not  the  ideal  of  a  popular  evangelist  who  has  to 
address  the  multitude,  and  produce  his  effect  on 
those  who  do  not  think.  For  his  work,  it  is 
necessary  —  besides  earnestness,  which  is  taken 
for  granted  —  to  have  a  loud  voice,  a  broad  hu- 
mour, a  stout  body,  a  flow  of  racy  anecdote,  an 
easy  negligence  of  connection,  a  spice  of  con- 
tempt for  culture,  and  pledges  of  identification 
with  the  street  in  dress  and  accent.  His  hearers 
feel  that  such  a  man  is  homely  and  is  one  of 
themselves,  and,  amid  laughter  and  tears  of  sim- 


INTRODUCTION  31 

pie  human  emotion,  they  are  moved  by  his  speech 
to  higher  things.  This  kind  of  audience  might 
regard  Drummond  with  respectful  admiration,  but 
he  was  too  fine  a  gentleman,  they  would  con- 
sider, for  their  homespun.  Place  him,  as  he 
used  to  stand  and  speak,  most  perfectly  dressed 
both  as  to  body  and  soul,  before  five  hundred 
men  of  good  taste  and  fine  sensibilities,  or  the 
same  number  of  young  men  not  yet  cultured  but 
full  of  intellectual  ambitions  and  fresh  enthu- 
siasm, and  no  man  could  state  the  case  for  Christ 
and  the  soul  after  a  more  spiritual  and  winsome 
fashion.  Religion  is  without  doubt  the  better  for 
the  popular  evangelist,  although  there  be  times 
when  quiet  folk  think  that  he  needs  chastening; 
religion  also  requires  in  every  generation  one 
representative  at  least  of  the  higher  evangelism, 
and  if  any  one  should  ask  what  manner  of  man 
he  ought  to  be,  the  answer  is  to  his  hand  — 
Henry  Drummond. 

When  one  admits,  without  reserve,  that  his 
friend  was  not  made  by  nature  to  be  a  successful 
officer  of  the  Salvation  Army,  it  must  not  be 
understood  that  Drummond  was  in  any  sense  a 
superior  person,  or  that  he  sniff'ed  in  his  dainti- 
ness at  ordinary  humanity  —  a  spiritual  Matthew 
Arnold.  It  would  strain  my  conscience  to  bear 
witness  that  working  people,  say,  however  much 
they  loved  him,  were  perfectly  at  home  with  him, 
and  it  is  my  conviction,  from  observation  of  life, 
that  this  is  an  inevitable  disability  of  distinction. 


32  INTRODUCTION 

One  may  be  so  well  dressed,  so  good  looking,  so 
well  mannered,  so  spiritually  refined,  that  men 
with  soiled  clothes  and  women  cleaning  the  house 
may  realise  their  low  estate,  and  miss  that  free- 
masonry which  at  once  by  a  hundred  signs  unites 
them  in  five  minutes  with  a  plainer  man.  While 
this  may  have  been  true,  the  blame  was  not  his, 
and  no  man  lived  who  had  a  more  unaffected  in- 
terest and  keener  joy  in  human  life  in  the  home 
or  on  the  street.  No  power  could  drag  him  past 
a  Punch-and-Judy  show  —  the  ancient,  perennial, 
ever-delightful  theatre  of  the  people  —  in  which, 
each  time  of  attendance,  he  detected  new  points 
of  interest.  He  would,  in  early  days,  if  you 
please,  gaze  steadfastly  into  a  window,  in  the 
High  Street  of  Edinburgh,  till  a  little  crowd  of 
men,  women,  children,  and  workmen,  loafers, 
soldiers,  had  collected,  and  join  with  much  zest 
in  the  excited  speculations  regarding  the  man  — 
unanimously  and  suddenly  imagined  to  have  been 
carried  in  helpless  —  how  he  met  with  his  acci- 
dent, where  he  was  hurt,  and  whether  he  would 
recover,  listening  eagerly  to  the  explanation  of 
the  gathering  given  by  some  officious  person  to 
the  policeman,  and  joining  heartily  in  the  re- 
proaches levelled  at  some  unknown  deceiver. 
One  of  his  chosen  subjects  of  investigation, 
which  he  pursued  with  the  zeal  and  patience  of  a 
naturalist,  was  that  ever-interesting  species  —  the 
Boy,  whom  he  studied  in  his  various  forms  and 
haunts:  at  home  for  the  holidays,  on  the  cricket 


INTRODUCTION  33 

field,  playing  marbles  on  the  street  with  a  chance 
acquaintance  while  two  families  wait  for  their 
food,  or  living  with  many  resources  and  high  en- 
joyment in  a  barrel.  There  was  nothing  in  a 
boy  he  did  not  know,  could  not  explain,  did  not 
sympathise  with,  and  so  long  as  it  lasts  his  name 
will  be  associated  with  the  Boys'  Brigade.  While 
any  other  would  only  have  seen  two  revellers  in 
a  man  and  woman  singing  their  devious  way 
along  the  street  at  night,  Drummond  detected 
that  a  wife,  who  had  not  been  drinking,  was  lur- 
ing her  husband  home  by  falling  in  with  his 
mood,  and  that  before  it  was  reached  she  might 
need  a  friendly  hand.  His  sense  of  humour  was 
unerring,  swift  and  masterful.  If  he  came  upon 
a  good  thing  in  his  reading  he  would  walk  a  mile 
to  share  it  with  a  friend,  and  afterwards  depart  in 
the  strength  thereof,  and  he  has  been  found  in 
his  room  exhausted  with  delight  with  nothing 
before  him  but  one  of  those  Parisian  plaster 
caricatures  of  a  vagabond.  Lying  on  his  back  in 
the  pitiable  helplessness  and  constant  pain  of 
those  last  two  years,  he  was  still  the  same  man. 

"  Don't  touch  me,  please  ;  I  can't  shake  hands, 
but  I  've  saved  up  a  first-rate  story  for  you,"  and 
his  palate  was  too  delicate  to  pass  anything 
second-rate.  Partly  this  was  his  human  joyous- 
ness,  to  whom  the  absurdities  of  life  were  ever 
dear;  partly  it  was  his  bravery,  who  knew  that 
the  sight  of  him  brought  so  low  might  be  too 
much  for  a  friend.     His  patience  and  sweetness 

3 


34  INTRODUCTION 

continued  to  the  end,  and  he  died  as  one  who 
had  tasted  the  joy  of  living  and  was  satisfied. 

His  nature  had,  at  the  same  tinme,  a  curious 
aloofness  and  separateness  from  human  life,  which 
one  felt,  but  can  hardly  describe.  He  could  be 
severe  in  speaking  about  a  mean  act  or  one  who 
had  done  wickedly,  but  in  my  recollection  he  was 
never  angry,  and  it  was  impossible  to  imagine 
him  in  a  towering  passion.  He  was  profoundly 
interested  in  several  causes,  but  there  was  not  in 
him  the  making  of  a  fanatical  or  headlong  sup- 
porter. None  could  be  more  loyal  in  the  private 
offices  of  friendship,  but  he  would  not  have  flung 
himself  into  his  friend's  public  quarrel.  In  no 
circumstances  would  he  be  carried  off  his  feet  by 
emotion  or  be  consumed  by  a  white  heat  of  en- 
thusiasm. He  was  ever  calm,  cool,  self-possessed 
master  of  himself,  passionless  in  thought,  in 
speech,  in  action,  in  soul.  Were  you  in  trouble 
he  had  helped  you  to  his  last  resource,  and  con- 
cealed, if  possible,  his  service;  but  of  you,  in  his 
sore  straits,  he  would  have  neither  asked  nor 
wished  for  aid.  Many  confidences  he  must  have 
received ;  he  gave  none ;  many  people  must  have 
been  succoured  by  him ;  none  succoured  him  till 
his  last  illness.  Towards  women,  who  are  the 
test  and  revelation  of  men,  he  was  ever  chival- 
rous, but  he  left  the  impression  on  your  mind 
that  neither  they  nor  their  company  —  there  may 
have  been  exceptions  —  attracted  or  satisfied  him. 
He  was  too  courteous  a  gentleman  to  give  any 


INTRODUCTION  35 

sign,  but  one  guessed  that  a  woman's  departure 
from  the  room  meant  to  him  no  loss,  and  was 
rather  a  rehef.  One  was  certain  that  he  was 
loved ;  one  was  quite  certain  that  he  would  never 
marry.  So  sexless  was  he  towards  women,  so 
neutral  towards  men,  so  void  of  the  elemental 
passions,  which  go  to  make  the  colour  and 
tragedy  of  life,  yet  so  noble  and  true  was  he, 
that  one  regarded  him  at  times  with  awe,  and  for 
a  moment  thought  of  him  as  a  being  of  another 
race,  mingling  with  our  life  in  all  kindliness,  yet 
maintaining  and  guarding  his  other  world  in- 
tegrity. 

This  is  at  least  perfectly  certain  that  from  his 
youth  he  refused  to  have  his  life  arranged  for 
him,  but  jealously  and  fearlessly  directed  it  by 
his  own  instincts,  refusing  the  brown,  beaten 
paths  wherein  each  man,  according  to  his  profes- 
sion, was  content  to  walk,  and  starting  across  the 
moor  on  his  own  way.  Nothing  can  be  more 
conventional  than  the  career  of  the  average  Pres- 
byterian minister  who  comes  from  a  respectable 
religious  family,  and  has  the  pulpit  held  up  be- 
fore him  as  the  ambition  of  a  good  Scots  lad ; 
who  is  held  in  the  way  thereto  by  various  tradi- 
tional and  prudential  considerations,  and  better 
still — as  is  the  case  with  most  honest  lads  —  by 
his  mother's  wishes  ;  who  works  his  laborious, 
enduring  way  through  the  Divinity  Hall,  and  is 
yearly  examined  by  the  local  Presbytery ;  who  at 
last  emerges  into  the  butterfly  life  of  a  Proba- 


36  INTRODUCTION 

tioner,  and  is  freely  mentioned,  to  his  mother's 
anxious  delight,  in  connection  with  "vacancies"; 
who  is  at  last  chosen  by  a  majority  to  a  pastorate 
—  his  mother  being  amazed  at  the  blindness  of 
the  minority  —  and  settles  down  to  the  routine 
of  the  ministry  in  some  Scotch  parish  with  the 
hope  of  Glasgow  before  him  as  a  land  of  promise. 
His  only  variations  in  the  harmless  years  might 
be  an  outburst  on  the  historical  reality  of 
the  Book  of  Jonah  —  ah  me  !  Did  that  stout, 
middle-aged  gentleman  ever  hint  that  Jonah  was 
a  drama?  —  which  would  be  much  talked  of  in  the 
common  room,  and,  it  was  whispered,  reached 
the  Professor's  ears;  and  afterwards  he  might 
propose  a  revolutionary  motion  on  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  Sustentation  Fund.  Adda  handbook 
for  Bible-classes  on  the  Prophecy  of  Malachi,  and 
you  have  summed  up  the  adventures  of  his  life. 
This  was  the  life  before  Drummond  when  he  en- 
tered the  University  of  Edinburgh  in  1866,  and  it 
ought  to  be  recorded  that  he  died  an  ordained 
minister  and  Professor  of  the  Kirk,  so  that  he  did 
not  disappoint  his  home,  not  become  an  eccle- 
siastical prodigal  —  but  with  what  amazing  varia- 
tions did  he  invest  the  years  between !  What 
order  he  took  his  classes  in  no  one  knew,  but  he 
found  his  feet  in  natural  philosophy  and  made  a 
name  in  geology.  His  course  at  the  New  Col- 
lege he  completed  in  three  years  and  one  year, 
with  two  years'  evangelistic  touring  between ;  and 
he  once  electrified  the  students  by  a  paper  —  it 


INTRODUCTION  37 

seems  yesterday,  and  I  know  where  he  stood  — 
which  owed  much  to  Holmes  and  Emerson,  but 
revealed  his  characteristic  spiritual  genius.  His 
vacations  he  spent  sometimes  in  tutorships,  which 
yielded  wonderful  adventures,  or  at  Tubingen, 
where  his  name  was  long  remembered.  As  soon 
as  Moody  came  to  Edinburgh,  Drummond  allied 
himself  with  the  most  capable,  honest,  and  un- 
selfish evangelist  of  our  day,  and  saw  strange 
chapters  in  religious  life  through  the  United  King- 
dom. This  was  the  infirmary  in  which  he  learned 
spiritual  diagnosis.  For  one  summer  he  was 
chaplain  at  Malta ;  in  another  he  explored  the 
Rockies ;  he  lived  five  months  among  the  Tan- 
ganyika forests,  where  he  sent  me  a  letter  dated 
Central  Africa,  and  mentioning,  among  other  de- 
tails, that  he  had  nothing  on  but  a  helmet  and 
three  mosquitoes.  He  was  for  a  time  assistant  in 
an  Edinburgh  church,  and  readers  of  the  illus- 
trated papers  used  to  recognise  him  in  the  vice- 
regal group  at  Dublin  Castle.  His  people  at  home 
—  one  could  trace  some  of  his  genius  and  much 
of  his  goodness  to  his  father  and  mother — grew 
anxious  and  perplexed ;  for  this  was  a  meteoric 
course  for  a  Free  Kirk  minister,  and  stolid  ac- 
quaintances—  the  delicious  absurdity  of  it — re- 
monstrated with  him  as  one  who  was  allowing  the 
chances  of  life  to  pass  him,  and  urged  him  to 
settle.  His  friends  had  already  concluded  that 
he  must  be  left  free  to  fulfil  himself,  but  knew  not 
what  to  expect,  when  he  suddenly  appeared  as  a 


38  INTRODUCTION 

lecturer  on  Natural  Science  in  the  Free  Church 
College  of  Glasgow,  and  promptly  annexed  a 
working-men's  church.  Afterwards  his  lecture- 
ship became  a  chair,  and  he  held  it  to  the  end, 
although  threatened  with  charges  of  heresy  and 
such  like  absurdities.  You  might  as  well  have 
beaten  a  spirit  with  a  stick  as  prosecuted  Drum- 
mond  for  heresy.  The  chair  itself  was  a  standing 
absurdity,  being  founded  in  popular  idea  to  beat 
back  evolution  and  to  reconcile  religion  and  sci- 
ence; but  it  gave  Drummond  an  opportunity  of 
widening  the  horizon  of  the  future  ministry  and 
infusing  sweetness  into  the  students'  minds.  He 
may  have  worn  a  white  tie  on  Sunday  duty  at  his 
church,  but  memory  fails  to  recall  this  spectacle, 
and  he  consistently  refused  to  be  called  Reverend 
—  declaring  (this  was  his  fun)  that  he  had  no  rec- 
ollection of  being  ordained,  and  that  he  would 
never  dare  to  baptise  a  child.  The  last  time  he 
preached  was  about  1882,  in  my  own  church,  and 
the  outside  world  did  not  know  that  he  was  a 
clergyman.  From  first  to  last  he  was  guided  by 
an  inner  light  which  never  led  him  astray,  and 
in  the  afterglow  his  whole  life  is  a  simple  and 
perfect  harmony. 

Were  one  asked  to  select  Drummond's  finest 
achievement,  he  might  safely  mention  the  cleans- 
ing of  student  life  at  Edinburgh  University. 
When  he  was  an  arts  student,  life  in  all  the  facul- 
ties, but  especially  the  medical,  was  reckless, 
coarse,  boisterous,  and  no  one  was  doing  anything 


INTRODUCTION  39 

to  raise  its  tone.  The  only  visible  sign  of  religion 
in  my  remembrance  was  a  prayer  meeting  at- 
tended by  a  dozen  men  —  one  of  whom  was  a 
canting  rascal  —  and  countenance  from  a  profes- 
sor would  have  given  a  shock  to  the  university. 
Twenty  years  afterwards  six  hundred  men,  largely 
medicals,  met  every  Sunday  evening  for  worship 
and  conference  under  Drummond's  presidency, 
and  every  evening  the  meeting  was  addressed  by 
tutors  and  fellows  and  other  dignitaries.  There 
was  a  new  breath  in  academic  life  —  men  were 
now  reverent,  earnest,  clean  living  and  clean  think- 
ing, and  the  reformer  who  wrought  this  change 
was  Drummond.  This  land,  and  for  that  matter 
the  United  States,  has  hardly  a  town  where  men 
are  not  doing  good  work  for  God  and  man  to-day 
who  have  owed  their  lives  to  the  Evangel  and 
influence  of  Henry  Drummond. 

When  one  saw  the  unique  and  priceless  work 
which  he  did,  it  was  inexplicable  and  very  pro- 
voking that  the  religious  world  should  have  cast 
this  man,  of  all  others,  out,  and  have  lifted  up  its 
voice  against  him.  Had  religion  so  many  men 
of  beautiful  and  winning  life,  so  many  thinkers 
of  wide  range  and  genuine  culture,  so  many 
speakers  who  can  move  young  men  by  hundreds 
towards  the  Kingdom  of  God,  that  she  could 
afford  or  have  the  heart  to  withdraw  her  con- 
fidence from  Drummond  ?  Was  there  ever  such 
madness  and  irony  before  Heaven  as  good  peo- 
ple lifting  up  their  testimony  and  writing  articles 


40  INTRODUCTION 

against  this  most  gracious  disciple  of  the  Master, 
because  they  did  not  agree  with  him  about  cer- 
tain things  he  said,  or  some  theory  he  did  not 
teach,  while  the  world  lay  round  them  in  unbelief 
and  selfishness,  and  sorrow  and  pain?  "What 
can  be  done,"  an  eminent  evangelist  once  did  me 
the  honour  to  ask,  "  to  heal  the  breach  between 
the  religious  world  and  Drummond?"  And  I 
dared  to  reply  that  in  my  poor  judgment  the  first 
step  ought  to  be  for  the  religious  world  to  repent 
of  its  sins,  and  make  amends  to  Drummond  for 
its  bitterness.  The  evangelist  indicated  that,  so 
far  as  he  knew  his  world,  it  was  very  unlikely  to  do 
any  such  becoming  deed,  and  I  did  not  myself 
remember  any  instance  of  repentance  on  the  part 
of  the  Pharisees.  Then,  growing  bold,  I  ven- 
tured to  ask  why  the  good  man  had  not  sum- 
moned Drummond  to  his  side,  as  he  was  working 
in  a  university  town,  and  knew  better  than  any 
other  person  that  he  could  not  find  anywhere  an 
assistant  so  acceptable  or  skilful.  He  agreed  in 
that,  but  declared  at  once  that  if  Drummond  came 
his  present  staff  would  leave,  and  that  two  men 
could  not  do  all  the  work,  which  seemed  reason- 
able, and,  besides,  every  man  knows  his  own 
business  best,  and  that  evangelist  knew  his  re- 
markably well.  Nothing  more  remained  to  be 
said,  and  I  rose  to  leave.  At  the  far  end  of  the 
room  some  of  the  staff  were  talking  together. 
"  I  gave  them  a  '  straight  talk '  at  the  men's  meet- 
ing last  night,  and  then  we  had  such  a  sweet  little 


INTRODUCTION  41 

*  sing,'  and  thirty  souls  dropped  in."  A  young 
man  of  the  better  class  was  speaking,  and  I  looked 
at  the  weak,  self-satisfied  face,  but  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  write  down  my  reflections  as  I  left  the 
place.  Never  did  my  friend  say  one  unkind  word 
of  the  world  which  condemned  him,  but  it  may  be 
allowed  to  another  to  say  that  if  any  one  wishes 
to  indict  the  professional  religionists  of  our  time 
for  bigotry  and  stupidity,  painful  and  unanswer- 
able proof  lies  ready  to  his  hand  in  the  fact  that 
the  finest  evangelist  of  the  day  was  treated  as  a 
Samaritan. 

One,  of  course,  remembers  that  Drummond's 
critics  had  their  reasons,  and  those  reasons  cast 
interesting  light  on  his  theological  standpoint. 
For  one  thing,  unlike  most  evangelists,  it  was 
perfectly  alien  to  this  man  to  insist  on  repent- 
ance, simply  because  he  had  not  the  painful  and 
overmastering  sense  of  sin  which  afflicts  most 
religious  minds,  and  gives  a  strenuous  turn  to  all 
their  thinking.  Each  thinker  conceives  religion 
according  to  his  cast  of  mind  and  trend  of  expe- 
rience, and  Christianity  to  Drummond  was  not  so 
much  a  way  of  escape  from  the  grip  of  sin,  with 
its  burden  of  guilt  and  loathsome  contact,  as  a 
way  of  ethical  and  spiritual  attainment.  The 
question  he  was  ever  answering  in  his  writing 
and  speaking  was  not  how  can  a  man  save  his 
soul,  but  how  can  a  man  save  his  life.  His  idea 
of  salvation  was  rising  to  the  stature  of  Christ 
and  sharing  His  simple,  lowly,  peaceful  life.    This 


42  INTRODUCTION 

was  the  text  of  his  brochures  on  religion,  which 
charmed  the  world  from  "  The  Greatest  Thing  in 
the  World"  to  "The  City  Without  a  Church." 
It  is  said  even  they  gave  offence  to  some  ultra- 
theological  minds  —  although  one  would  fain  have 
believed  that  such  persuasive  pleas  have  won  all 
hearts  —  and  I  have  some  faint  remembrance, 
perhaps  a  nightmare,  that  people  published  re- 
plies to  the  eulogy  of  Love.  It  was  quite  beside 
the  mark  to  find  fault  with  the  theology  in  the 
little  books,  because  there  was  none  and  could 
be  none,  since  there  was  none  in  the  author.  Just 
as  there  are  periods  in  the  development  of  Chris- 
tianity, there  are  men  in  every  age  corresponding 
to  each  of  the  periods  —  modern,  Reformation, 
and  Mediaeval  minds  —  and  what  charmed  many  in 
Drummond  was  this,  that  he  belonged  by  nature 
to  the  pre-theological  age.  He  was  in  his  habit 
and  thought  a  Christian  of  the  Gospels,  rather 
than  of  the  Epistles,  and  preferred  to  walk  with 
Jesus  in  Galilee  rather  than  argue  with  Judaisers 
and  Gnostics.  It  would  be  a  gross  injustice  to 
say  that  he  was  anti-theological :  it  would  be 
correct  to  say  that  he  was  non-theological.  Jesus 
was  not  to  him  an  official  Redeemer  discharging 
certain  obligations:  He  was  his  unseen  Friend 
with  whom  he  walked  in  life,  by  Whose  fellow- 
ship he  was  changed,  to  Whom  he  prayed.  The 
effort  of  life  should  be  to  do  the  Will  of  God,  the 
strength  of  life  was  Peace,  the  reward  of  life  was 
to  be  like  Jesus.     Perfect  Christianity  was  to  be 


INTRODUCTION  43 

as  St.  John  was  with  Jesus.     It  was  the  Idyll  of 
Religion. 

Perhaps  his  two  famous  books,  "  Natural  Law 
in  the  Spiritual  World,"  and  "The  Ascent  of 
Man,"  ought  to  be  judged  as  larger  Idylls.  A 
writer  often  fails  when  he  has  counted  himself 
strong,  and  succeeds  in  that  which  he  has  him- 
self belittled.  It  was  at  one  time  Drummond's 
opinion  that  he  had  made  a  discovery  in  that 
fascinating  debatable  land  between  nature  and 
religion,  and  that  he  was  able  to  prove  that  the 
laws  which  govern  the  growth  of  a  plant  are 
the  same  in  essence  as  those  which  regulate 
the  culture  of  a  soul.  It  appeared  to  some  of 
us  that  the  same  laws  could  not  and  did  not 
run  through  both  provinces,  but  that  on  the 
frontier  of  the  spiritual  world  other  laws  came 
into  operation,  and  that  "  Natural  Law"  set  forth 
with  much  grace  and  ingenuity  a  number  of 
instructive  analogies,  and  sometimes  only  sug- 
gestive illustrations.  Had  Drummond  believed 
this  was  its  furthest  scope,  he  would  never  have 
published  the  book,  and  it  was  an  open  secret 
that  in  later  years  he  lost  all  interest  in  "  Natural 
Law."  My  own  idea  is  that  he  had  abandoned 
its  main  contention  and  much  of  its  teaching, 
and  would  have  been  quite  willing  to  see  it  with- 
drawn from  the  public.  While  that  book  was  an 
attempt  to  identify  the  laws  of  two  worlds  which, 
under  one  suzerain,  are  really  each  autonomous, 
the   "Ascent   of    Man"   was   a   most  successful 


44  INTRODUCTION 

effort  to  prove  that  the  spirit  of  Religion,  which 
is  altruism,  pervades  the  processes  of  nature. 
It  is  the  Poem  of  Evolution,  and  is  from  begin- 
ning to  end  a  fascinating  combination  of  scien- 
tific detail  and  spiritual  imagination.  Both 
books,  but  especially  the  Ascent,  were  severely 
criticised  from  opposite  quarters,  by  theologians 
because  the  theology  was  not  sound,  by  men 
of  science  because  the  science  was  loose,  and 
Drummond  had  the  misfortune  of  being  a  heretic 
in  two  provinces.  But  he  had  his  reward  in  the 
gratitude  of  thousands  neither  dogmatic  nor  par- 
tisan, to  whom  he  has  given  a  new  vision  of  the 
beauty  of  life  and  the  graciousness  of  law. 

His  books  will  do  good  for  years,  as  they  have 
done  in  the  past,  and  his  tract  on  Charity  will 
long  be  read,  but  the  man  was  greater  than  all 
his  writings.  While  he  was  competent  in  science, 
in  religion  he  was  a  master,  and  if  in  this  sphere 
he  failed  anywhere  in  his  thinking,  it  was  in  his 
treatment  of  sin.  This  was  the  defect  of  his 
qualities,  for  of  him,  more  than  of  any  man 
known  to  me,  it  could  be  affirmed  he  did  not 
know  sin.  As  Fra  Angelico  could  paint  the 
Holy  Angels  because  he  had  seen  them,  but 
made  poor  work  of  the  devils  because  to  him 
they  were  strange  creatures,  so  this  man  could 
make  holiness  so  lovely  that  all  men  wished  to  be 
Christians ;  but  his  hand  lost  its  cunning  at  the 
mention  of  sin,  for  he  had  never  played  the  fool. 
From  his  youth  up  he  had  kept  the  command- 


INTRODUCTION  45 

ments,  and  was  such  a  man  as  the  Master  would 
have  loved.  One  takes  for  granted  that  each 
man  has  his  besetting  sin,  and  we  could  name 
that  of  our  friends,  but  Drummond  was  an  ex- 
ception to  this  rule.  After  a  lifetime's  intimacy 
I  do  not  remember  my  friend's  failing.  Without 
pride,  without  envy,  without  selfishness,  without 
vanity,  moved  only  by  goodwill  and  spiritual 
ambitions,  responsive  ever  to  the  touch  of  God 
and  every  noble  impulse,  faithful,  fearless,  mag- 
nanimous, Henry  Drummond  was  the  most 
perfect  Christian  I  have  known  or  expect  to  see 
this  side  the  grave. 

John  Watson. 

(/««  Madaren.) 


The  Ideal  Life 


NUMBER  I 

Ill-Temper 

THE   ELDER 
BROTHER 

"  He  was  angry,  and  would  not  go  in.''"'  —  Luke  xv.  28. 

THOSE  who  have  studied  the  paintings  of 
Sir  Noel  Paton  must  have  observed  that 
part  of  their  peculiar  beauty  lies,  by  a  trick  of 
Art,  in  their  partial  ugliness.  There  are  flowers 
and  birds,  knights  and  ladies,  gossamer-winged 
fairies  and  children  of  seraphic  beauty ;  but  in  the 
corner  of  the  canvas,  or  just  at  their  feet,  some  un- 
couth and  loathsome  form  —  a  toad,  a  lizard,  a 
slimy  snail  —  to  lend,  by  contrast  with  its  repulsive- 
ness,  a  lovelier  beauty  to  the  rest.  So  in  ancient 
sculpture  the  griffin  and  the  dragon  grin  among 
the  angel  faces  on  the  cathedral  front,  heighten- 
ing the  surrounding  beauty  by  their  deformity. 

Many  of  the  literary  situations  of  the  New 
Testament  powerfully  exhibit  this  species  of 
contrast.  The  twelve  disciples  —  one  of  them 
is  a  devil.  Jesus  upon  the  Cross,  pure  and  regal 
—  on  either  side  a  thief.     And  here,  as  conspicu- 


48  ILL-TEMPER 

ously,  in  this  fifteenth  chapter  of  Luke,  the  most 
exquisite  painting  in  the  Bible  is  touched  off  at 
the  foot  with  the  black  thundercloud  of  the  elder 
brother  —  perfect,  as  a  mere  dramatic  situation. 

But  this  conjunction,  of  course,  is  more  than 
artistic.  Apart  from  its  reference  to  the  Phari- 
sees, the  association  of  these  two  characters  — 
the  prodigal  and  his  brother  —  side  by  side  has 
a  deep  moral  significance. 

When  we  look  into  Sin,  not  in  its  theological 
aspects,  but  in  its  everyday  clothes,  we  find  that 
it  divides  itself  into  two  kinds.  We  find  that 
there  are  sins  of  the  body  and  sins  of  the  dispo- 
sition. Or  more  narrowly,  sins  of  the  passions, 
including  all  forms  of  lust  and  selfishness,  and 
sins  of  the  temper.  The  prodigal  is  the  instance 
in  the  New  Testament  of  sins  of  passion;  the 
elder  brother,  of  sins  of  temper. 

One  would  say,  at  a  first  glance,  that  it  was  the 
younger  brother  in  this  picture  who  was  the 
thundercloud.  It  was  he  who  had  dimmed  all 
the  virtues,  and  covered  himself  and  his  home 
with  shame.  And  men  have  always  pointed  to 
the  runaway  son  in  contrast  with  his  domestic 
brother,  as  the  type  of  all  that  is  worst  in  human 
character.  Possibly  the  estimate  is  wrong.  Pos- 
sibly the  elder  brother  is  the  worse.  We  judge  of 
sins,  as  we  judge  of  most  things,  by  their  out- 
ward form.  We  arrange  the  vices  of  our  neigh- 
bours according  to  a  scale  which  society  has 
tacitly   adopted,   placing    the    more   gross    and 


ILL-TEMPER  49 

public  at  the  foot,  the  slightly  less  gross  higher 
up,  and  then  by  some  strange  process  the  scale 
becomes  obliterated.  Finally  it  vanishes  into 
space,  leaving  lengths  of  itself  unexplored,  its 
sins  unnamed,  unheeded,  and  unshunned.  But 
we  have  no  balance  to  weigh  sins.  Coarser  and 
finer  are  but  words  of  our  own.  The  chances 
are,  if  anything,  that  the  finer  are  the  lower. 
The  very  fact  that  the  world  sees  the  coarser 
sins  so  well  is  against  the  belief  that  they  are  the 
worst.  The  subtle  and  unseen  sin,  that  sin  in 
the  part  of  the  nature  most  near  to  the  spiritual, 
ought  to  be  more  degrading  than  any  other. 
Yet  for  many  of  the  finer  forms  of  sin  society 
has  yet  no  brand.  This  sin  of  the  elder  brother 
is  a  mere  trifle,  only  a  little  bit  of  temper,  and 
scarcely  worthy  the  recording. 

Now  what  was  this  little  bit  of  temper?  For 
Christ  saw  fit  to  record  it.  The  elder  brother, 
hard-working,  patient,  dutiful  —  let  him  get  full 
credit  for  his  virtues  —  comes  in  from  his  long 
day's  work  in  the  fields.  Every  night  for  years 
he  has  plodded  home  like  this,  heavy-limbed  but 
light-hearted,  for  he  has  done  his  duty  and  honest 
sweat  is  on  his  brow.  But  a  man's  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility for  his  character  ends  too  often  with 
the  day's  work.  And  we  always  meet  the  temp- 
tation which  is  to  expose  us  when  we  least 
expect  it.  To-night,  as  he  nears  the  old  home- 
stead, he  hears  the  noise  of  mirth  and  music. 
He  makes  out  the  strain  of  a  dancing  measure 

4 


50  ILL-TEMPER 

—  a  novel  sound,  surely,  for  the  dull  farm. 
*'  Thy  brother  is  come,"  the  servant  says,  "  and 
they  have  killed  the  fatted  calf."  His  brother ! 
Happy  hour !  how  long  they  mourned  for  him  ! 
How  glad  the  old  man  would  be  !  How  the 
family  prayer  has  found  him  out  at  last  and 
brought  the  erring  boy  to  his  parents'  roof!  But 
no  —  there  is  no  joy  on  that  face;  it  is  the  thun- 
dercloud. "  Brother,  indeed,"  he  mutters;  "the 
scapegrace!  Killed  the  fatted  calf,  have  they? 
More  than  they  ever  did  for  me.  I  can  teach 
them  what  /  think  of  their  merry-making.  And 
talk  of  the  reward  of  virtue  !  Here  have  I  been 
all  these  years  unhonoured  and  ignored,  and  this 
young  roiie  from  the  swine-troughs  assembles  the 
whole  country-side  to  do  him  homage."  "  And 
he  was  angry,  and  would  not  go  in." 

"  Oh,  the  baby  ! "  one  inclines  to  say  at  first ; 
but  it  is  more  than  this.  It  is  the  thundercloud, 
a  thundercloud  which  has  been  brewing  under 
all  his  virtues  all  his  life.  It  is  the  thundercloud. 
The  subtle  fluids  from  a  dozen  sins  have  come 
together  for  once,  and  now  they  are  scorching 
his  soul.  Jealousy,  anger,  pride,  uncharity, 
cruelty,  self-righteousness,  sulkiness,  touchiness, 
doggedness,  all  mixed  up  together  into  one —  111 
Temper.  This  is  a  fair  analysis.  Jealousy, 
anger,  pride,  uncharity,  cruelty,  self-righteous- 
ness, sulkiness,  touchiness,  doggedness,  —  these 
are  the  staple  ingredients  of  111  Temper.  And 
yet,  men  laugh  over  it.     "  Only  temper,"  they 


ILL-TEMPER  51 

call  it:  a  little  hot-headedness,  a  momentary- 
ruffling  of  the  surface,  a  mere  passing  cloud. 
But  the  passing  cloud  is  composed  of  drops,  and 
the  drops  here  betoken  an  ocean,  foul  and  ran- 
corous, seething  somewhere  within  the  life  —  an 
ocean  made  up  of  jealousy,  anger,  pride,  un- 
charity,  cruelty,  self-righteousness,  sulkiness, 
touchiness,  doggedness,  lashed  into  a  raging 
storm. 

This  is  why  temper  is  significant.  It  is  not  in 
what  it  is  that  its  significance  lies,  but  in  what  it 
reveals.  But  for  this  it  were  not  worth  notice. 
It  is  the  intermittent  fever  which  tells  of  uninter- 
mittent  disease;  the  occasional  bubble  escaping 
to  the  surface,  betraying  the  rottenness  under- 
neath ;  a  hastily  prepared  specimen  of  the  hid- 
den products  of  the  soul,  dropped  involuntarily 
when  you  are  off  your  guard.  In  one  word,  it  is 
the  lightning-form  of  a  dozen  hideous  and  un- 
christian sins. 

One  of  the  first  things  to  startle  us  —  leaving 
now  mere  definition  —  about  sins  of  temper,  is 
their  strange  compatibility  with  high  moral  char- 
acter. The  elder  brother,  without  doubt,  was  a 
man  of  high  principle.  Years  ago,  when  his 
father  divided  unto  them  his  living,  he  had  the 
chance  to  sow  his  wild  oats  if  he  liked.  As  the 
elder  brother,  there  fell  to  him  the  larger  portion. 
Now  was  his  time  to  see  the  world,  to  enjoy  life, 
and  break  with  the  monotony  of  home.  Like  a 
dutiful  son,  he  chose  his  career.     The  old  home 


52  ILL-TEMPER 

should  be  his  world,  the  old  people  his  society. 
He  would  be  his  father's  right  hand,  and  cheer 
and  comfort  his  declining  years.  So  to  the  ser- 
vants he  became  a  pattern  of  industry ;  to  the 
neighbours  an  example  of  thrift  and  faithfulness; 
a  model  young  man  to  all  the  country,  and  the 
more  so  by  contrast  with  his  vagabond  brother. 
For  association  with  lofty  character  is  a  painful 
circumstance  of  this  deformity.  And  it  suggests 
strange  doubts  as  to  the  real  virtue  of  much  that 
is  reckoned  virtue  and  gets  credit  for  the  name. 
In  reality  we  have  no  criterion  for  estimating  at 
their  true  worth  men  who  figure  as  models  of  all 
the  virtues.  Everything  depends  on  motive. 
The  virtues  may  be  real  or  only  apparent,  even 
as  the  vices  may  be  real  though  not  apparent. 
Some  men,  for  instance,  are  kept  from  going 
astray  by  mere  cowardice.  They  have  not  char- 
acter enough  to  lose  their  character.  For  it 
often  requires  a  strong  character  to  go  wrong. 
It  demands  a  certain  originality  and  courage,  a 
pocketing  of  pride  of  which  all  are  not  capable, 
before  a  man  can  make  up  his  mind  to  fall  out  of 
step  with  Society  and  scatter  his  reputation  to  the 
winds.  So  it  comes  to  pass  that  many  very  mean 
men  retain  their  outward  virtue.  Conversely, 
among  the  prodigal  sons  of  the  world  are  often 
found  characters  of  singular  beauty.  The  prodi- 
gal, no  doubt,  was  a  better  man  to  meet  and  spend 
an  hour  with  than  his  immaculate  brother.  A 
wealth  of  tenderness  and  generosity,  truly  sweet 


ILL-TEMPER  53 

and  noble  dispositions,  constantly  surprise  us  in 
characters  hopelessly  under  the  ban  of  men.  But 
it  is  an  instance  of  misconception  as  to  the  nature 
of  sin  that  with  most  men  this  counts  for  nothing; 
although  in  those  whose  defalcation  is  in  the  lower 
region  it  counts,  and  counts  almost  for  everything. 
Many  of  those  who  sow  to  the  flesh  regard  their 
form  of  sin  as  trifling  compared  with  the  inconsis- 
tent and  unchristian  graces  of  those  who  profess  to 
sow  to  the  spirit.  Many  a  man,  for  example,  who 
thinks  nothing  of  getting  drunk  would  scorn  to  do 
an  ungenerous  deed  or  speak  a  withering  word. 
And,  as  already  said,  it  is  really  a  question  whether 
he  is  not  right.  One  man  sins  high  up  in  his  nature, 
the  other  low  down ;  and  the  vinous  spendthrift, 
on  the  whole,  may  be  a  better  man  than  the 
acid  Christian.  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,"  said 
Jesus  to  the  priests,  "  the  publicans  and  the  har- 
lots go  into  the  kingdom  of  God  before  you." 

The  fact,  then,  that  there  are  these  two  distinct 
sets  of  sins,  and  that  few  of  us  indulge  both,  but 
most  of  us  indulge  the  one  or  the  other,  explains 
compatibility  of  virtuous  conduct  with  much  un- 
loveliness  of  disposition.  Now  it  is  this  very 
association  which  makes  sins  of  temper  appear 
so  harmless.  There  cannot  be  much  wrong,  we 
fancy,  where  there  is  so  much  general  good. 
How  often  it  is  urged  as  an  apology  for  garrulous 
people,  that  they  are  the  soul  of  kindness  if  we 
only  knew  them  better.  And  how  often  it  is 
maintained,   as  a   set-off  against   crossness    and 


54  ILL-TEMPER 

pitiable  explosions  of  small  distempers,  that  those 
who  exhibit  them  are,  in  their  normal  mood, 
above  the  average  in  demonstrative  tenderness. 
And  it  is  this  which  makes  it  so  hard  to  cure. 
We  excuse  the  partial  failure  of  our  characters 
on  the  ground  of  their  general  success.  We  can 
afford  to  be  a  little  bad  who  are  so  good.  A  true 
logic  would  say  we  can  only  afford  to  be  a  little 
better.  If  the  fly  in  the  ointment  is  a  very  small 
fly,  why  have  a  very  small  fly?  Temper  is  the 
vice  of  the  virtuous.  Christ's  sermon  on  the 
"  Elder  brother"  is  evidently  a  sermon  pointedly 
to  the  virtuous  —  not  to  make  bad  people  good 
but  to  make  good  people  perfect. 

Passing  now  from  the  nature  and  relations  of 
sins  of  this  peculiar  class,  we  come  briefly  to  look 
at  their  effects.  And  these  are  of  two  kinds  — 
the  influence  of  temper  on  the  intellect,  and  on 
the  moral  and  religious  nature. 

With  reference  to  the  first,  it  has  sometimes 
been  taken  for  granted  that  a  bad  temper  is  a 
positive  acquisition  to  the  intellect.  Its  fieriness 
is  supposed  to  communicate  combustion  to  sur- 
rounding faculties,  and  to  kindle  the  system  into 
intense  and  vigorous  life.  "  A  man,  when  ex- 
cessively jaded,"  says  Darwin,  "  will  sometimes 
invent  imaginary  offences,  and  put  himself  into 
a  passion  unconsciously,  for  the  sake  of  re-invig- 
orating himself"  Now,  of  course,  passion  has 
its  legitimate  place  in  human  nature,  and  when 


ILL-TEMPER  55 

really  controlled,  instead  of  controlling,  becomes 
the  most  powerful  stimulus  to  the  intellectual 
faculties.  Thus  it  is  this  to  which  Luther  refers 
when  he  says,  "  I  never  work  better  than  when  I 
am  inspired  by  anger.  When  I  am  angry,  I 
can  write,  pray,  and  preach  well;  for  then  my 
whole  temperament  is  quickened,  my  understand- 
ing sharpened,  and  all  mundane  vexations  and 
temptations  depart." 

The  point,  however,  at  which  temper  inter- 
feres with  the  intellect  is  in  all  matters  of  judg- 
ment. A  quick  temper  really  incapacitates  for 
sound  judgment.  Decisions  are  struck  off  at  a 
white  heat,  without  time  to  collect  grounds  or 
hear  explanations.  Then  it  takes  a  humbler 
spirit  than  most  of  us  possess  to  reverse  them 
when  once  they  are  made.  We  ourselves  are 
prejudiced  in  their  favour  simply  because  we 
have  made  them,  and  subsequent  courses  must 
generally  do  homage  to  our  first  precipitancy. 
No  doubt  the  elder  brother  secretly  confessed 
himself  a  fool  the  moment  after  his  back  was 
turned  on  the  door.  But  he  had  taken  his  stand  ; 
he  had  said,  "I  will  not  go  in,"  and  neither  his 
father's  entreaties  nor  his  own  sense  of  the  grow- 
ing absurdity  of  the  situation  —  think  of  the  man 
standing  outside  his  own  door  —  were  able  to 
shake  him.  Temptation  betraying  a  man  into 
an  immature  judgment,  that  quickly  followed  by 
an  irrelevant  action,  and  the  whole  having  to  be 
defended  by  subsequent  conduct,   after  making 


16  ILL-TEMPER 

such  a  fuss  about  it  —  such  is  the  natural  history 
on  the  side  of  intellect  of  a  sin  of  temper. 

Amongst  the  scum  left  behind  by  such  an 
action,  apart  from  the  consequences  to  the  indi- 
vidual are  results  always  disastrous  to  others. 
For  this  is  another  peculiarity  of  sins  of  temper, 
that  their  worst  influence  is  upon  others.  It  is 
generally,  too,  the  weak  who  are  the  sufferers; 
for  temper  is  the  prerogative  of  superiors,  and 
inferiors,  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  scale,  have 
not  only  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  storm,  but  to 
sink  their  own  judgment  and  spend  their  lives 
in  ministering  to  what  they  know  to  be  caprice. 
So  their  whole  training  is  systematically  false, 
and  their  own  mental  habits  become  disorganised 
and  ruined.  When  the  young,  again,  are  dis- 
ciplined by  the  iron  instead  of  on  the  golden 
rule,  the  consequences  are  still  more  fatal.  They 
feel  that  they  do  not  get  a  fair  hearing.  Their 
case  is  summarily  dismissed  untried;  and  that 
sort  of  nursery  lynch  law  to  which  they  are  con- 
stantly subjected  carries  with  it  no  explanation 
of  moral  principles,  muzzles  legitimate  feelings, 
and  really  inflicts  a  punishment  infinitely  more 
serious  than  is  intended,  in  crushing  out  all 
sense  of  justice. 

But  it  is  in  their  moral  and  social  effects  that 
the  chief  evil  lies.  It  is  astonishing  how  large 
a  part  of  Christ's  precepts  is  devoted  solely  to 
the  inculcation  of  happiness.  How  much  of  His 
life,    too,   was  spent  simply   in   making   people 


ILL-TEMPER  57 

happy!  There  was  no  word  more  often  on  His 
lips  than  "blessed,"  and  it  is  recognised  by  Him 
as  a  distinct  end  in  life,  the  end  for  this  life,  to 
secure  the  happiness  of  others.  This  simple 
grace,  too,  needs  little  equipment.  Christ  had 
little.  One  need  scarcely  even  be  happy  one's 
self.  Holiness,  of  course,  is  a  greater  word, 
but  we  cannot  produce  that  in  others.  That 
is  reserved  for  God  Himself,  but  what  is  put 
in  our  power  is  happiness,  and  for  that  each 
man  is  his  brother's  keeper.  Now  society  is  an 
arrangement  for  producing  and  sustaining  human 
happiness,  and  temper  is  an  agent  for  thwart- 
ing and  destroying  it.  Look  at  the  parable  for 
a  moment,  and  see  how  the  elder  brother's 
wretched  pettishness,  explosion  of  temper,  churl- 
ishness, spoiled  the  happiness  of  a  whole 
circle.  First,  it  certainly  spoiled  his  own.  How 
ashamed  of  himself  he  must  have  been  when 
the  fit  was  over,  one  can  well  guess.  Yet  these 
things  are  never  so  quickly  over  as  they  seem. 
Self-disgust  and  humiliation  may  come  at  once, 
but  a  good  deal  else  within  has  to  wait  till  the 
spirit  is  tuned  again.  For  instance,  prayer  must 
wait.  A  man  cannot  pray  till  the  sourness  is 
out  of  his  soul.  He  must  first  forgive  his  brother 
who  trespassed  against  him  before  he  can  go  to 
God  to  have  his  own  trespasses  forgiven. 

Then  look  at  the  effect  on  the  father,  or  on 
the  guests,  or  even  on  the  servants  —  that  scene 
outside  had  cast  its  miserable  gloom  on  the  entire 


58  ILL-TEMPER 

company.  But  there  was  one  other  who  felt  it 
with  a  tenfold  keenness  —  the  prodigal  son.  We 
can  imagine  the  effect  on  him.  This  was  home, 
was  it .''  Well,  it  was  a  pity  he  ever  came.  If 
this  was  to  be  the  sort  of  thing,  he  had  better 
go.  Happier  a  thousand  times  among  the  swine 
than  to  endure  the  boorishness  of  his  self-con- 
tained, self-righteous  brother.  Yes,  we  drive 
men  from  Christ's  door  many  a  time  by  our  sorry 
entertainment.  The  Church  is  not  spiritualised 
enough  yet  to  entertain  the  world.  We  have  no 
spiritual  courtesies.  We  cultivate  our  faith  and 
proclaim  our  hope,  but  forget  that  a  greater  than 
these  is  charity.  Till  men  can  say  of  us,  "They 
suffer  long  and  are  kind,  they  are  not  easily  pro- 
voked, do  not  behave  themselves  unseemly,  bear 
all  things,  think  no  evil,"  we  have  no  chance 
against  the  world.  One  repulsive  Christian  will 
drive  away  a  score  of  prodigals.  God's  love 
for  poor  sinners  is  very  wonderful,  but  God's 
patience  with  ill-natured  saints  is  a  deeper 
mystery. 

The  worst  of  the  misery  caused  by  ill-temper 
is  that  it  does  no  good.  Some  misery  is  bene- 
ficial, but  this  is  gratuitous  woe.  Nothing  in 
the  world  causes  such  rankling,  abiding,  unneces- 
sary and  unblessed  pain.  And  Christ's  words, 
therefore,  when  He  refers  to  the  breach  of  the 
law  of  love  are  most  severe.  "  If  any  man  offend 
one  of  these  little  ones,"  He  says,  "  it  were  better 
for  him  that  a  millstone  were  hanged  about  his 


ILL-TEMPER  59 

neck,  and  that  he  were  cast  into  the  depth  of  the 
sea."  That  is  to  say,  it  is  Christ's  deliberate 
verdict  that  it  is  better  not  to  live  than  not  to 
love. 

In  its  ultimate  nature  Distemper  is  a  sin 
against  love.  And  however  impossible  it  may 
be  to  realize  that  now,  however  we  may  condone 
it  as  a  pardonable  weakness  or  small  infirmity, 
there  is  no  greater  sin.  A  sin  against  love  is  a 
sin  against  God,  for  God  is  love.  He  that  sin- 
neth  against  love,  sinneth  against  God. 

This  tracing  of  the  sin  to  its  root  now  suggests 
this  further  topic  —  its  cure,  Christianity  pro- 
fesses to  cure  anything.  The  process  may  be 
slow,  the  discipline  may  be  severe,  but  it  can  be 
done.  But  is  not  temper  a  constitutional  thing  ? 
Is  it  not  hereditary,  a  family  failing,  a  matter  of 
temperament,  and  can  that  be  cured  ?  Yes,  if 
there  is  anything  in  Christianity.  If  there  is  no 
provision  for  that,  then  Christianity  stands  con- 
victed of  being  unequal  to  human  need.  What 
course  then  did  the  father  take,  in  the  case  before 
us,  to  pacify  the  angry  passions  of  his  ill-natured 
son  ?  Mark  that  he  made  no  attempt  in  the  first 
instance  to  reason  with  him.  To  do  so  is  a 
common  mistake,  and  utterly  useless  both  with 
ourselves  and  others.  We  are  perfectly  convinced 
of  the  puerility  of  it  all,  but  that  does  not  help  us 
in  the  least  to  mend  it.  The  malady  has  its  seat 
in  the  affections,  and  therefore  the  father  went 
there  at  once.     Reason  came  in  its  place,  and  the 


6o  ILL-TEMPER 

son  was  supplied  with  valid  arguments  —  stated  in 
the  last  verse  of  the  chapter — against  his  con- 
duct, but  he  was  first  plied  with  Love. 

"  Son,"  said  the  father,  "  thou  art  ever  with  me, 
and  all  that  I  have  is  thine."  Analyse  these 
words,  and  underneath  them  you  will  find  the 
rallying  cries  of  all  great  communities.  There 
lie  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity —  the  happy 
symbols  with  which  men  have  sought  to  maintain 
governments  and  establish  kingdoms.  "  Son  "  — 
there  is  Liberty.  "  Thou  art  ever  with  me  "  — 
there  is  Unity,  Fraternity.  "  All  that  I  have  is 
thine  "  —  there  is  Equality.  If  any  appeal  could 
rouse  a  man  to  give  up  himself,  to  abandon  selfish 
ends,  under  the  strong  throb  of  a  common  sym- 
pathy, it  is  this  formula  of  the  Christian  Republic. 
Take  the  last.  Equality,  alone  —  "All  that  I  have 
is  thine."  It  is  absurd  to  talk  of  your  rights  here 
and  your  rights  there.  You  have  all  rights.  "  All 
that  I  have  is  thine."  There  is  no  room  for  self- 
ishness if  there  is  nothing  more  that  one  can 
possess.  And  God  has  made  the  Equality.  God 
has  given  us  all,  and  if  the  memory  of  His  great 
kindness.  His  particular  kindness  to  us,  be  once 
moved  within,  the  heart  must  melt  to  Him,  and 
flow  out  to  all  mankind  as  brothers. 

It  is  quite  idle,  by  force  of  will,  to  seek  to 
empty  the  angry  passions  out  of  our  life.  Who 
has  not  made  a  thousand  resolutions  in  this  direc- 
tion, only  and  with  unutterable  mortification  to 
behold  them  dashed  to  pieces  with  the  first  temp- 


ILL-TEMPER  6i 

tation  ?  The  soul  is  to  be  made  sweet  not  by 
taking  the  acidulous  fluids  out,  but  by  putting 
something  in  —  a  great  love,  God's  great  love. 
This  is  to  work  a  chemical  change  upon  them,  to 
renovate  and  regenerate  them,  to  dissolve  them 
in  its  own  rich  fragrant  substance.  If  a  man  let 
this  into  his  life,  his  cure  is  complete ;  if  not,  it  is 
hopeless. 

The  character  most  hard  to  comprehend  in  the 
New  Testament  is  the  unmerciful  servant.  For 
his  base  extravagance  his  wife  and  children  were 
to  be  sold,  and  himself  imprisoned.  He  cries  for 
mercy  on  his  knees,  and  the  10,000  talents,  hope- 
less and  enormous  debt,  is  freely  cancelled.  He 
goes  straight  from  the  kind  presence  of  his  lord, 
and,  meeting  some  poor  wretch  who  owes  him  a 
hundred  pence,  seizes  him  by  the  throat  and  hales 
him  to  the  prison-cell,  from  which  he  himself  had 
just  escaped.  How  a  man  can  rise  from  his 
knees,  where,  forgiven  much  already,  he  has  just 
been  forgiven  more,  and  go  straight  from  the 
audience  chamber  of  his  God  to  speak  hard  words 
and  do  hard  things,  is  all  but  incredible.  This 
servant  truly  in  wasting  his  master's  money  must 
have  wasted  away  his  own  soul.  But  grant  a  man 
any  soul  at  all,  love  must  follow  forgiveness. 

Being  forgiven  much,  he  mi^si  love  much,  not 
as  a  duty,  but  as  a  necessary  consequence;  he 
vms^  become  a  humbler,  tenderer  man,  generous 
and  brotherly.  Rooted  and  grounded  in  love,  his 
love  will  grow  till  it  embraces  the  earth.     Then 


62  ILL-TEMPER 

only  he  dimly  begins  to  understand  his  father's 
gift  —  "All  that  I  have  is  thine."  The  world  is 
his  :  he  cannot  injure  his  own.  The  ground  of 
benevolence  is  proprietorship.  And  all  who  love 
God  are  the  proprietors  of  the  world.  The  meek 
inherit  the  earth  —  all  that  He  has  is  theirs.  All 
that  God  has  —  what  is  that?  Mountain  and 
field,  tree  and  sky,  castle  and  cottage,  white  man, 
black  man,  genius  and  dullard,  prisoner  and  pau- 
per, sick  and  aged — all  these  are  mine.  If  noble 
and  hiappy,  I  must  enjoy  them ;  if  great  and 
beautiful,  I  must  delight  in  them  ;  if  poor  and 
hungry,  I  must  clothe  them ;  if  sick  and  in 
prison,  I  must  visit  them.  For  they  are  all  mine, 
all  these,  and  all  that  God  has  beside,  and  I  must 
love  all  and  give  myself  for  all. 

Here  the  theme  widens.  From  Plato  to  Her- 
bert Spencer  reformers  have  toiled  to  frame  new 
schemes  of  Sociology.  There  is  none  so  grand 
as  the  Sociology  of  Jesus.  But  we  have  not 
found  out  the  New  Testament  Sociology  yet; 
we  have  spent  the  centuries  over  its  theology. 
Surely  man's  relation  to  God  may  be  held  as 
settled  now.  It  is  time  to  take  up  the  other  prob- 
lem, man's  relation  to  man.  With  a  former  the- 
ology, man  as  man,  as  a  human  being,  was  of  no 
account.  He  was  a  mere  theological  unit,  the 
X  of  doctrine,  an  unknown  quantity.  He  was 
taught  to  believe,  therefore,  not  to  love.  Now 
we  are  learning  slowly  that  to  believe  is  to  love ; 
that  the  first  commandment  is  to  love  God,  and 


ILL-TEMPER  63 

the  second  /ike  imio  it  —  another  version  of  it  — 
is  to  love  man.  Not  only  the  happiness  but  the 
efficiency  of  the  passive  virtues,  love  as  a  power, 
as  a  practical  success  in  the  world,  is  coming  to 
be  recognised.  The  fact  that  Christ  led  no  army, 
that  He  wrote  no  book,  built  no  church,  spent  no 
money,  but  that  He  loved,  and  so  conquered,  this 
is  beginning  to  strike  men.  And  Paul's  argu- 
ment is  gaining  adherents,  that  when  all  prophe- 
cies are  fulfilled,  and  all  our  knowledge  becomes 
obsolete,  and  all  tongues  grow  unintelligible,  this 
thing.  Love,  will  abide  and  see  them  all  out  one 
by  one  into  the  oblivious  past.  This  is  the  hope 
for  the  world  that  we  shall  learn  to  love,  and  in 
learning  that,  unlearn  all  anger  and  wrath  and 
evil-speaking  and  malice  and  bitterness. 

And  this  will  indeed  be  the  world's  future. 
This  is  heaven.  The  curtain  drops  on  the  story 
of  the  prodigal,  leaving  him  iuy  but  the  elder 
brother  out.  And  why  is  obvious.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  such  a  man  to  be  in  heaven.  He  would 
spoil  heaven  for  all  who  were  there.  Except 
such  a  man  be  born  again  he  cannot  enter  the 
kingdom  of  God.  To  get  to  heaven  we  must  take 
it  in  with  us. 

There  are  many  heavens  in  the  world  even 
now  from  which  we  all  shut  ourselves  out  by  our 
own  exclusiveness  —  heavens  of  friendship,  of 
family  life,  of  Christian  work,  of  benevolent  min- 
istrations to  the  poor  and  ignorant  and  distressed. 
Because  of  some    personal   pique,  some    disap- 


64  ILL-TEMPER 

proval  of  methods,  because  the  lines  of  work  of 
some  of  the  workers  are  not  exactly  to  our  taste, 
we  play  the  elder  brother,  we  are  angry  and  will 
not  go  in.  This  is  the  naked  truth  of  it,  we  are 
simply  angry  and  will  not  go  in.  And  this  bears, 
if  we  could  see  it,  its  own  worst  penalty;  for 
there  is  no  severer  punishment  than  just  to  be  left 
outside,  perhaps,  to  grow  old  alone,  unripe,  love- 
less and  unloved.  We  are  angry  and  will  not  go 
in.  All  sins  mar  God's  image,  but  sins  of  temper 
mar  God's  image  and  God's  work  and  man's 
happiness. 


NUMBER   II 

Why    Christ   must 
Depart 

A   SERMON   BEFORE 
COMMUNION 

"//  is  expedient  for  you  that  T  go  away.''''  —  John  xvi.  7. 

T  was  on  a  communion  night  like  this  that  the 
words  were  spoken.  They  fell  upon  the 
disciples  Hke  a  thunderbolt  startling  a  summer 
sky.  Three  and  thirty  years  He  had  lived  among 
them.  They  had  lately  learned  to  love  Him. 
Day  after  day  they  had  shared  together  the  sun- 
shine and  the  storm,  and  their  hearts  clung  to 
Him  with  a  strange  tenderness.  And  just  when 
everything  was  at  its  height,  when  their  friendship 
was  now  pledged  indissolubly  in  the  first  most 
solemn  sacrament,  the  unexpected  words  come, 
"  I  must  say  good-bye ;  it  is  expedient  for  you 
that  I  go  away."  It  was  a  crushing  blow  to  the 
little  band.  They  had  staked  their  all  upon  that 
love.  They  had  given  up  home,  business,  friends, 
and  promised  to  follow  Him.  And  now  He  says, 
"  I  must  go  !  " 

Let  us  see  what  He  means  by  it.  The  words 
may  help  us  to  understand  more  fully  our  own 
relations  with  Him  now  that  He  is  gone. 

S 


66        WHY   CHRIST  MUST   DEPART 

I.  The  first  thing  to  strike  one  is  the  way  Jesus 
took  to  break  the  news.  It  was  characteristic. 
His  sayings  and  doings  ahvays  came  about  in  the 
most  natural  way.  Even  His  profoundest  state- 
ments of  doctrine  were  invariably  apropos  of  some 
often  trivial  circumstance  happening  in  the  day's 
round.  So  now  He  did  not  suddenly  deliver 
Himself  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Ascension.  It 
leaked  out  as  it  were  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
things. 

The  supper  was  over;  but  the  friends  had 
much  to  say  to  one  another  that  night,  and  they 
lingered  long  around  the  table.  They  did  not 
know  it  was  the  last  supper,  never  dreamed  of  it ; 
but  there  had  been  an  unusual  sweetness  in  their 
intercourse,  and  they  talked  on  and  on.  The 
hour  grew  late,  but  John  still  leaned  on  his 
Master's  breast,  and  the  others,  grouped  round 
in  the  twilight,  drank  in  the  solemn  gladness  of 
the  communion  evening.  Suddenly  a  shadow 
falls  over  this  scene.  A  sinister  figure  rises 
stealthily,  takes  the  bag,  and  makes  for  the  door 
unobserved.  Jesus  calls  him :  hands  him  the  sop. 
The  spell  is  broken.  A  terrible  revulsion  of 
feeling  comes  over  Him  —  as  if  a  stab  in  the 
dark  had  struck  into  His  heart.  He  cannot  go 
on  now.  It  is  useless  to  try.  He  cannot  keep 
up  the  perhaps  forced  spirits. 

**  Little  children,"  He  says  very  solemnly,  His 
voice  choking,  "  yet  a  little  while  I  am  with  you." 
And  "  Whither  I  go  ye  cannot  come." 


WHY  CHRIST   MUST  DEPART       67 

The  hour  is  late.  They  think  He  is  getting 
tired.  He  means  to  retire  to  rest.  But  Peter 
asks  straight  out,  "Lord,  whither  goest  Thou?" 
Into  the  garden?  Back  to  GaHlee?  It  never 
occurred  to  one  of  them  that  He  meant  the 
Unknown  Land. 

"Whither  I  go,"  He  replies  a  second  time, 
"ye  cannot  follow  Me  now,  but  ye  shall  follow 
Me  afterward.''  Afterivard!  The  blow  slowly 
falls.  In  a  dim,  bewildering  way  it  begins  to 
dawn  upon  them.     It  is  separation. 

We  can  judge  of  the  effect  from  the  next  sen- 
tence, "Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled,"  He 
says.  He  sees  their  panic  and  consternation, 
and  doctrine  has  to  stand  aside  till  experimental 
religion  has  ministered.  And  then  it  is  only 
at  intervals  that  He  gets  back  to  it;  every  sen- 
tence almost  is  interrupted.  Questionings  and 
misgivings  are  started,  explanations  are  insisted 
on,  but  the  terrible  truth  will  not  hide.  He 
always  comes  back  to  that  —  He  will  not  temper 
its  meaning,  He  still  insists  that  it  is  absolute, 
literal;  and  finally  He  states  it  in  its  most  bare 
and  naked  form,  "  It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I 
go  away." 

II.  Notice  His  reasons  for  going  away.  Why 
did  Jesus  go  away.-*  We  all  remember  a  time 
when  we  could  not  answer  that  question.  We 
wished'  He  had  stayed,  and  had  been  here  now. 
The  children's  hymn  expresses  a  real  human 
feeling,  and  our  hearts  burn  still  as  we  read  it: 


68        WHY   CHRIST   MUST   DEPART 

"  I  think,  when  I  read  that  sweet  story  of  old, 
How  Jesus  was  here  among  men, 
He  called  little  children  like  lambs  to  His  fold, 
I  should  like  to  have  been  with  Him  then. 

"  I  wish  that  His  hands  had  been  placed  on  my  head, 
That  His  arms  had  been  thrown  around  me. 
And  that  I  might  have  seen  His  kind  look  as  He  said, 
'  Let  the  little  ones  come  unto  Me.' " 

Jesus  must  have  had  reasons  for  disappointing 
a  human  feeling  so  deep,  so  universal,  and  so 
sacred.  We  may  be  sure,  too,  that  these  reasons 
intimately  concern  us.  He  did  not  go  away  be- 
cause He  was  tired.  It  was  quite  true  that  He 
was  despised  and  rejected  of  men ;  it  was  quite 
true  that  the  pitiless  world  hated  and  spurned 
and  trod  on  Him.  But  that  did  not  drive  Him 
away.  It  was  quite  true  that  He  longed  for  His 
Father's  house  and  pined  and  yearned  for  His 
love.  But  that  did  not  draw  Him  away.  No. 
He  never  thought  of  Himself.  It  is  expedient 
ior  you,  He  says,  not  for  Me,  that  I  go. 

I.  The  first  reason  is  one  of  His  own  stating. 
"  I  go  away  to  prepare  a  place  for  you. "  And  the 
very  naming  of  this  is  a  proof  of  Christ's  con- 
siderateness.  The  burning  question  with  every 
man  who  thought  about  his  life  in  those  days 
was,  Whither  is  this  life  leading.?  The  present, 
alas !  was  dim  and  inscrutable  enough,  but  the 
future  was  a  fearful  and  unsolved  mystery.  So 
Christ  put  that  right  before  He  went  away.  He 
gave  this  unknown  future  form  and  colour.     He 


WHY   CHRIST   MUST   DEPART       69 

told  us  —  and  it  is  only  because  we  are  so  accus- 
tomed to  it  that  we  do  not  wonder  more  at  the 
magnificence  of  the  conception  — that  when  our 
place  in  this  world  should  know  us  no  more  there 
would  be  another  place  ready  for  us.  We  do  not 
know  much  about  that  place,  but  the  best  thing 
we  do  know,  that  He  prepares  it.  Eye  hath  not 
seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  hath  it  entered  into  the 
heart  of  man  what  the  Lord  went  away  to  pre- 
pare for  them  that  love  Him.  It  is  better  to 
think  of  this,  to  let  our  thoughts  rest  on  this, 
that  He  prepares  it,  than  to  fancy  details  of  our 
own. 

But  that  does  not  exhaust  the  matter.  Con- 
sider the  alternative.  If  Christ  had  not  gone 
away,  what  then }  We  should  not  either.  The 
circumstances  of  our  future  life  depended  upon 
Christ's  going  away  to  prepare  them;  but  the 
fact  of  our  going  away  at  all  depended  on  His 
going  away.  We  could  not  follow  Him  here- 
after, as  He  said  we  should,  unless  He  led  first. 
He  had  to  be  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life. 

And  this  was  part  of  the  preparing  a  place  for 
us  —  the  preparing  a  way  for  us.  He  prepared 
a  place  for  us  by  the  way  He  took  to  prepare  a 
place.      It  was  a  very  wonderful  way. 

In  a  lonely  valley  in  Switzerland  a  small  band 
of  patriots  once  marched  against  an  invading 
force  ten  times  their  strength.  They  found 
themselves  one  day  at  the  head  of  a  narrow  pass, 
confronted    by  a   solid   wall   of   spears.      They 


70       WHY   CHRIST   MUST  DEPART 

made  assault  after  assault,  but  that  bristling  line 
remained  unbroken.  Time  after  time  they  were 
driven  back  decimated  with  hopeless  slaughter. 
The  forlorn  hope  rallied  for  the  last  time.  As 
they  charged,  their  leader  suddenly  advanced 
before  them  with  outstretched  arms,  and  every 
spear  for  three  or  four  yards  of  the  line  was 
buried  in  his  body.  He  fell  dead.  But  he  pre- 
pared a  place  for  his  followers.  Through  the 
open  breach,  over  his  dead  body,  they  rushed  to 
victory  and  won  the  freedom  of  their  country. 

So  the  Lord  Jesus  went  before  His  people,  the 
Captain  of  our  salvation,  sheathing  the  weapons 
of  death  and  judgment  in  Himself,  and  prepar- 
ing a  place  for  us  with  His  dead  body.  Well 
for  us  not  only  that  He  went  away,  but  that  He 
went  by  way  of  the  Cross. 

2.  Another  reason  why  He  went  away  was  to 
be  very  near.  It  seems  a  paradox,  but  He  went 
away  really  in  order  to  be  near.  Suppose,  again. 
He  had  not  gone  away;  suppose  He  were  here 
now.  Suppose  He  were  still  in  the  Holy  Land, 
at  Jerusalem.  Every  ship  that  started  for  the 
East  would  be  crowded  with  Christian  pilgrims. 
Every  train  flying  through  Europe  would  be 
thronged  with  people  going  to  see  Jesus.  Every 
mail-bag  would  be  full  of  letters  from  those  in 
difficulty  and  trial,  and  gifts  of  homage  to  mani- 
fest men's  gratitude  and  love.  You  yourself, 
let  us  say,  are  in  one  of  those  ships.  The  port, 
when  you  arrive  after  the  long  voyage,  is  blocked 


WHY   CHRIST  MUST   DEPART        71 

with  vessels  of  every  flag.  With  much  difficulty 
you  land,  and  join  one  of  the  long  trains  start- 
ing for  Jerusalem.  Far  as  the  eye  can  reach, 
the  caravans  move  over  the  desert  in  an  endless 
stream.  You  do  not  mind  the  scorching  sun, 
the  choking  dust,  the  elbowing  crowds,  the  burn- 
ing sands.  You  are  in  the  Holy  Land,  and  you 
will  see  Jesus !  Yonder,  at  last,  in  the  far  dis- 
tance, are  the  glittering  spires  of  the  Holy  Hill, 
above  all  the  burnished  temple  dome  beneath 
which  He  sits.  But  what  is  that  dark  seething 
mass  stretching  for  leagues  and  leagues  between 
you  and  the  Holy  City.?  They  have  come  from 
the  north  and  from  the  south,  and  from  the  east 
and  from  the  west,  as  you  have,  to  look  upon 
their  Lord.     They  wish 

"That  His  hands  might  be  placed  on  their  head  ; 
That  His  arms  might  be  thrown  around  them." 

But  it  cannot  be.  You  have  come  to  see  Jesus, 
but  you  will  not  see  Him.  They  have  been  there 
weeks,  months,  years,  and  have  not  seen  Him. 
They  are  a  yard  or  two  nearer,  and  that  is  all. 
The  thing  is  impossible.  It  is  an  anti-climax, 
an  absurdity.  It  would  be  a  social  outrage ;  it 
would  be  a  physical  impossibility. 

Now  Christ  foresaw  all  this  when  He  said  it  was 
expedient  that  He  should  go  away.  Observe  He 
did  not  say  it  was  necessary  —  it  was  expediejit. 
The  objection  to  the  opposite  plan  was  simply 
that  it  would  not  have  worked.     So  He  says  to 


72        WHY   CHRIST   MUST  DEPART 

you,  "  It  is  very  kind  and  earnest  of  you  to  come 
so  far,  but  you  mistake.  Go  away  back  from  the 
walls  of  the  Holy  City,  over  the  sea,  and  you  will 
find  Me  in  your  own  home.  You  will  find  Me 
where  the  shepherds  found  Me,  doing  their  ordi- 
nary work ;  where  the  woman  of  Samaria  found 
Me,  drawing  the  water  for  the  forenoon  meal ; 
where  the  disciples  found  Me,  mending  nets  in 
their  working  clothes;  where  Mary  found  Me, 
among  the  commonplace  household  duties  of  a 
country  village."  What  would  religion  be,  indeed, 
if  the  soul-sick  had  to  take  their  turn  like  the  out- 
patients waiting  at  the  poor-hour  outside  the  in- 
firmary? How  would  it  be  with  the  old  who  were 
too  frail  to  travel  to  Him,  or  the  poor  who  could 
not  afford  it?  How  would  it  be  with  the  blind, 
who  could  not  see  Him ;  or  the  deaf,  who  could 
not  hear  Him?  It  would  be  physically  impos- 
sible for  millions  to  obey  the  Lord's  command, 
"  Come  unto  Me,  and  I  will  give  you  rest " 

For  their  sakes  it  was  expedient  that  He  should 
go  away.  It  was  a  great  blessing  for  the  world 
that  He  went.  Access  to  Him  is  universally  com- 
plete from  every  corner  of  every  home  in  every 
part  of  the  world.  For  the  poor  can  have  Him 
always  with  them.  The  soul-sick  cannot  be  out 
of  reach  of  the  Physician.  The  blind  can  see  His 
beauty  now  that  He  has  gone  away.  The  deaf 
hear  His  voice  when  all  others  are  silent,  and  the 
dumb  can  pray  when  they  cannot  speak. 

Yes,  the  visible  Incarnation  must  of  necessity 


WHY   CHRIST   MUST  DEPART       73 

be  brief.  Only  a  small  circle  could  enjoy  His 
actual  presence,  but  a  kingdom  like  Christianity 
needed  a  risen  Lord.  It  was  expedient  for  the 
whole  body  of  its  subjects  that  He  went  away. 
He  would  be  nearer  man  by  being  apparently 
further.  The  limitations  of  sense  subjected  Him 
while  He  stayed.  He  was  subject  to  geography, 
locality,  space,  and  time.  But  by  going  away  He 
was  in  a  spaceless  land,  in  a  timeless  eternity, 
able  to  be  with  all  men  always  even  unto  the  end 
of  the  world. 

3.  Another  reason  why  He  went  away — al- 
though this  is  also  a  paradox  —  was  that  we  might 
see  Him  better.  When  a  friend  is  with  us  we  do 
not  really  see  him  so  well  as  when  he  is  away. 
We  only  see  points,  details.  It  is  like  looking  at 
a  great  mountain :  you  see  it  best  a  little  way  off. 
Clamber  up  the  flanks  of  Mont  Blanc,  you  see 
very  little,  —  a  few  rocks,  a  pine  or  two,  a  blind- 
ing waste  of  snow ;  but  come  down  into  the  Val- 
ley of  Chamounix  and  there  the  monarch  dawns 
upon  you  in  all  his  majesty. 

Christ  is  the  most  gigantic  figure  of  history. 
To  take  in  His  full  proportions  one  must  be 
both  near  and  away.  The  same  is  true  of  all 
greatness.  Of  all  great  poets,  philosophers,  poli- 
ticians, men  of  science,  it  is  said  that  their  gen- 
eration never  knew  them.  They  dawn  upon  us 
as  time  rolls  past.  Then  their  life  comes  out  in 
its  true  perspective,  and  the  symmetry  of  their 
work  is  revealed.     We  never  know  our  friends, 


74       WHY   CHRIST   MUST  DEPART 

likewise,  till  we  lose  them.  We  often  never  know 
the  beauty  of  a  life  which  is  lived  very  near  our 
own  till  the  hand  of  death  has  taken  it  away.  It 
was  expedient  for  us,  therefore,  that  He  should 
go  —  that  we  might  see  the  colossal  greatness  of 
His  stature,  appreciate  the  loftiness  and  massive- 
ness  of  His  whole  character,  and  feel  the  perfect 
beauty  and  oneness  of  His  life  and  work. 

4,  Still  another  reason.  He  went  away  that 
we  might  walk  by  faitJi.  After  all,  if  He  had 
stayed,  with  all  its  inconveniences,  we  should 
have  been  walking  by  sight  And  this  is  the 
very  thing  religion  is  continually  trying  to  undo. 
The  strongest  temptation  to  every  man  is  to 
guide  himself  by  what  he  can  see,  and  feel,  and 
handle.  This  is  the  core  of  Ritualism,  the  foun- 
dation of  Roman  Catholicism,  the  essence  of 
idolatry.  Men  want  to  see  God,  therefore  they 
make  images  of  Him.  We  do  not  laugh  at  Ritu- 
alism; it  is  intensely  human.  It  is  not  so  much 
a  sin  of  presumption ;  it  is  a  sin  of  mistake.  It 
is  a  trying  to  undo  the  going  away  of  Christ.  It 
is  a  trying  to  make  believe  that  He  is  still  here. 
And  the  fatal  fallacy  of  it  is  that  it  defeats  its 
own  end.  He  v/ho  seeks  God  in  tangible  form 
misses  the  very  thing  he  is  seeking,  for  God  is  a 
Spirit.  The  desire  burns  within  him  to  see  God; 
the  desire  is  given  him  to  make  him  spiritual,  by 
giving  him  a  spiritual  exercise  to  do;  and  he 
cheats  himself  by  exercising  the  flesh  instead  of 
the  spirit.     Hunger  and  thirst  after  God  are  an 


WHY   CHRIST   MUST   DEPART       75 

endowment  to  raise  us  out  of  the  seen  and  tem- 
poral. But  instead  of  letting  the  spiritual  appe- 
tite elevate  us  into  the  spirit,  we  are  apt  to 
degrade  the  very  instrument  of  our  spiritualisa- 
tion  and  make  it  minister  to  the  flesh. 

It  was  expedient  in  order  that  the  disciples 
should  be  spiritualised  that  Jesus  should  become 
a  Spirit.  Life  in  the  body  to  all  men  is  short. 
The  mortal  dies  and  puts  on  immortality.  So 
Christ's  great  aim  is  to  strengthen  the  after-life. 
Therefore  He  gave  exercises  in  faith  to  be  the 
education  for  immortality.  Therefore  Jesus  went 
away  to  strengthen  the  spirit  for  eternity. 

It  is  not  because  there  is  any  deep,  mysterious 
value  in  faith  itself  that  it  plays  so  great  a  part  in 
religion.  It  is  not  because  God  arbitrarily  chooses 
that  we  should  walk  by  faith  rather  than  by  sight. 
It  is  because  it  is  essential  to  our  future ;  it  is  be- 
cause this  is  the  faculty  which  of  all  others  is 
absolutely  necessary  to  life  in  the  spirit. 

For  our  true  life  will  be  lived  in  the  spirit.  In 
the  hereafter  there  will  be  nothing  carnal.  Christ 
is  therefore  solicitous  to  educate  our  faith,  for 
sight  will  be  useless.  There  will  be  no  eye,  no 
pupil,  no  retina,  no  optic  nerve  in  the  hereafter, 
so  faith  is  the  spiritual  substitute  for  them  which 
Christ  would  develop  in  us  by  going  away. 

5.  But  the  great  reason  has  yet  to  be  mentioned. 
He  went  away  that  the  Comforter  might  come. 

We  have  seen  how  His  going  away  was  a  pro- 
vision for  the  future  life.     The  absent  Lord  pre- 


^6        WHY   CHRIST   MUST   DEPART 

pares  a  place  there;  the  absent  object  of  faith 
educates  the  souls  of  the  faithful  to  possess  and 
enjoy  it.  But  He  provides  for  the  life  that  now 
is.  And  His  going  away  has  to  do  with  the 
present  as  much  as  with  the  life  to  come.  One 
day  when  Jesus  was  in  Perea,  a  message  came  to 
Him  that  a  very  dear  friend  was  sick.  He  lived  in 
a  distant  village  with  his  two  sisters.  They  were 
greatly  concerned  about  their  brother's  illness, 
an'"  "id  sent  in  haste  for  Jesus.  Now  Jesus  loved 
Mar'y  and  Martha  and  Lazarus  their  brother;  but 
He  was  so  situated  at  the  time  that  He  could  not 
go.  Perhaps  He  was  too  busy,  perhaps  He  had 
other  similar  cases  on  hand ;  at  all  events,  He 
could  not  go.  When  He  went  ultimately,  it  was 
too  late.  Hour  after  hour  the  sisters  waited  for 
Him.  They  could  not  believe  He  would  not 
come ;  but  the  slow  hours  dragged  themselves 
along  by  the  dying  man's  couch,  and  he  was 
dead  and  laid  in  the  grave  before  Jesus  arrived. 
You  can  imagine  one  of  His  thoughts,  at  least,  as 
He  stands  and  weeps  by  that  grave  with  the  in- 
consolable sisters  :  "  It  is  expedient  that  I  go  away. 
I  should  have  been  present  at  his  death-bed  scene 
if  I  had  been  away.  I  will  depart  and  send  the 
Comforter.  There  will  be  no  summons  of  sorrow 
which  He  will  not  be  able  to  answer.  He  will 
abide  with  men  for  ever.  Everywhere  He  will 
come  and  go.  He  will  be  like  the  noiseless,  in- 
visible wind  blowing  all  over  the  world  where- 
soever He  listeth." 


WHY   CHRIST   MUST  DEPART       jy 

The  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  very  simple. 
Men  stumble  over  it  because  they  imagine  it  to 
be  something  very  mysterious  and  unintelligible. 
But  the  whole  matter  lies  here.  Our  text  is  the 
key  to  it.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  just  what  Christ 
would  have  been  had  He  been  here.  He  minis- 
ters comfort  just  as  Christ  would  have  done  — 
only  without  the  inconveniences  of  circumstance, 
without  the  restriction  of  space,  without  the  limi- 
tations of  time.  More :  we  need  a  per  al 
Christ,  but  we  cannot  get  it,  at  least  we  ca.mot 
each  get  it.  So  the  only  alternative  is  a  spiritual 
Christ,  /.  e.  a  Holy  Spirit,  and  then  we  can  all  get 
Him.  He  reproves  the  world  of  sin,  of  righteous- 
ness, and  of  judgment.  Christ  had  to  go  away  to 
make  room  for  a  person  of  the  Trinity  who  could 
deal  with  the  world.  He  himself  could  only  re- 
prove the  individual  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and 
of  judgment.  But  work  on  a  larger  scale  is  done 
now  that  He  is  gone.  This  is  what  He  refers  to 
when  He  said,  "  Greater  works  than  these  shall 
ye  do." 

And  yet  Christ  did  not  go  away  that  the  Spirit 
might  take  His  place.  Christ  is  with  us  Himself. 
He  is  with  us  and  yet  He  is  not  with  us ;  that  is, 
He  is  with  us  by  His  spirit.  The  Spirit  does  not 
reveal  the  Spirit.  He  speaks  not  of  Himself,  He 
reveals  Christ.  He  is  the  nexus,  the  connection 
between  the  absent  Christ  and  the  world  —  a 
spiritual  presence  which  can  penetrate  where  the 
present  Christ  could  not  go.     It  was  expedient 


78        WHY   CHRIST   MUST   DEPART 

for  the  present  Christ  to  go  away  that  the  uni- 
versal Christ  might  come  to  all. 

Fhially,  if  all  this  was  expedient  for  us,  this 
strange  relation  of  Jesus  to  His  people  ought  to 
have  a  startling  influence  upon  our  life.  Expedi- 
ency is  a  practical  thing.  It  was  a  terrible  risk 
going  away.  Has  the  expedient  which  Christ 
adopted  been  worth  while  to  you  and  me  ? 
These  three  great  practical  effects  at  least  are 
obvious. 

(r)  Christ  ought  to  be  as  near  to  us  as  if  He 
were  still  here.  Nothing  so  simplifies  the  whole 
religious  life  as  this  thought.  A  present,  personal 
Christ  solves  every  difficulty,  and  meets  every 
requirement  of  Christian  experience.  There  is  a 
historical  Christ,  a  national  Christ,  a  theological 
Christ  —  we  each  want  Christ.  So  we  have  Him. 
For  purposes  of  expediency,  for  a  little  while, 
He  has  become  invisible.  It  is  our  part  to  have 
Him. 

"  More  present  to  Faith's  vision  keen 

Than  any  other  vision  seen  ; 

More  near,  more  intimately  nigh 

Than  any  other  earthly  tie." 

(2)  Then  consider  what  an  incentive  to  honest 
faithfulness  this  is.  The  kingdom  of  Heaven  is 
like  a  man  travelling  into  a  far  country.  And 
before  he  went  he  called  his  servants  and  gave  to 
every  man  his  work. 

Are  we  doing  it  faithfully  ?  Are  we  doing  it 
at  all  ?     The  visible  eye  of  the  Master  is  off  us. 


WHY   CHRIST  MUST  DEPART       79 

No  one  inspects  our  work-  Wood,  hay,  stubble, 
no  man  knows.  It  is  the  test  of  the  absent 
Christ.  He  is  training  us  to  a  kind  of  faithful- 
ness whose  high  quality  is  unattained  by  any 
other  earthly  means.  It  was  after  the  Lord  was 
gone  that  the  disciples  worked.  They  grew  fast 
after  this  —  in  vigour,  in  usefulness,  in  reliance,  in 
strength  of  character.  Hitherto  they  had  rested 
in  His  love.  Did  you  ever  think  what  a  risk  it 
was  for  Him  to  go  away  ?  It  was  a  terrible  risk 
—  to  leave  us  here  all  by  ourselves.  And  yet  this 
was  one  of  His  ways  of  elevating  us.  There  is 
nothing  exalts  a  man  like  confidence  put  in  him. 
So  He  went  away  and  let  them  try  themselves. 

We  cannot  always  sit  at  the  communion  table. 
We  partake  of  the  feast  not  so  much  as  a  luxury, 
though  it  is  that,  but  to  give  us  strength  to  work. 
We  think  our  Sabbath  services,  our  prayers,  our 
Bible  reading,  are  our  religion.  It  is  not  so.  We 
do  these  things  to  help  us  to  be  religious  in  other 
things.  These  are  the  mere  meals,  and  a  work- 
man gets  no  wages  for  his  meals.  It  is  for  the 
work  he  does.  The  value  of  this  communion  is 
not  estimated  yet.  It  will  take  the  coming  week 
to  put  the  value  upon  it.  In  itself  it  counts  little  ; 
we  shall  see  what  it  is,  by  what  we  shall  be. 

Every  communicant  is  left  by  Christ  with  a 
solemn  responsibility.  Christ's  confidence  in  us 
is  unspeakably  touching.  Christ  was  sure  of  us  ; 
He  felt  the  world  was  safe  in  our  hands.  He 
was  away,  but  we  would    be  Christs   to  it;  the 


8o       WHY   CHRIST   MUST  DEPART 

Light  of  the  World  was  gone,  but  he  would  light 
a  thousand  lights,  and  leave  each  of  us  as  one 
to  illuminate  one  corner  of  its  gloom. 

(3)  Lastly,  He  has  only  gone  for  a  little 
while:  "Behold,  I  come  quickly."  The  proba- 
tion will  soon  be  past.  "  Be  good  children  till  T 
come  back,"  He  has  said,  like  a  mother  leaving 
her  little  ones,  "  and  I  will  come  again,  and 
receive  you  unto  Myself,  that  where  I  am,  ye 
may  be  also."  So  we  wait  till  He  come  again  — 
we  wait  till  it  is  expedient  for  Him  to  come  back. 

"  So  I  am  waiting  quietly  every  day, 
Whenever  the  sun  shines  brightly,  I  rise  and  say,  '  Surely 

it  is  the  shining  of  His  face  ; ' 
And  when  a  shadow  falls  across  the  window  of  the  room 
Where  I  am  working  my  appointed  task, 
I  lift  my  head  and  ask  if  He  is  come." 


NUMBER   III 

Going   to    the 
Father 

WRITTEN   AFTER   THE 
DEATH   OF    A    FRIEND 

"  I  go  to  my  Father'^  —  John  xiv.  12. 

YOU  can  unlock  a  man's  whole  life  if  you 
watch  what  words  he  uses  most.  We  have 
each  a  small  set  of  words,  which,  though  we  are 
scarce  aware  of  it,  we  always  work  with,  and 
which  really  express  all  that  we  mean  by  life,  or 
have  found  out  of  it.  For  such  words  embalm 
the  past  for  us.  They  have  become  ours  by  a 
natural  selection  throughout  our  career  of  all 
that  is  richest  and  deepest  in  our  experience. 
So  our  vocabulary  is  our  history,  and  our  favour- 
ite words  are  ourselves. 

Did  you  ever  notice  Christ's  favourite  words? 
If  you  have,  you  must  have  been  struck  by  two 
things  —  their  simplicity  and  their  fewness.  Some 
half-dozen  words  embalm  all  His  theology,  and 
these  are,  without  exception,  humble,  elementary, 
simple  monosyllables.  They  are  such  words  as 
these :  world,  life,  trust,  love. 

But  none  of  these  was   the   greatest  word  of 
Christ.     His    great   word   was    new   to    religion. 
6 


82  GOING   TO   THE   FATHER 

There  was  no  word  there,  when  He  came,  rich 
enough  to  carry  the  new  truth  He  was  bringing 
to  men.  So  He  imported  into  rehgion  one  of  the 
grandest  words  of  human  language,  and  trans- 
figured it,  and  gave  it  back  to  the  world  illumi- 
nated and  transformed,  as  the  watchword  of  the 
new  religion.     That  word  was  Father. 

The  world's  obligation  to  the  Lord  Jesus  is 
that  He  gave  us  that  word.  We  should  never 
have  thought  of  it;  if  we  had,  we  should  never 
have  dared  to  say  it.  It  is  a  pure  revelation. 
Surely  it  is  the  most  touching  sight  of  the  world's 
past  to  see  God's  only  begotten  Son  coming  down 
from  heaven  to  try  to  teach  the  stammering  dumb 
inhabitants  of  this  poor  planet  to  say,  "  Our 
Father." 

It  is  that  word  which  has  gathered  the  great 
family  of  God  together ;  and  when  we  come  face 
to  face  with  the  real,  the  solid,  and  the  moving  in 
our  religion,  it  is  to  find  all  its  complexity  resolv- 
able into  this  simplicity,  that  God,  whom  others 
call  King  Eternal,  Infinite  Jehovah,  is,  after  all, 
our  Father,  and  we  are  His  children. 

This,  after  all,  is  religion.  And  to  live  daily  in 
this  simplicity,  is  to  live  like  Christ. 

It  takes  a  great  deal  to  succeed  as  a  Christian 
—  such  a  great  deal,  that  not  many  do  succeed. 
And  the  great  reason  for  want  of  success  is  the 
want  of  a  central  word.  Men  will  copy  anything 
rather  than  a  principle.  A  relationship  is  always 
harder  to  follow  than  a  fact.     We  study  the  de- 


GOING  TO   THE   FATHER  83 

tails  of  Christ's  actions,  the  point  of  this  miracle 
and  of  that,  the  circumferential  truth  of  this 
parable  and  of  that,  but  to  copy  details  is  not  to 
copy  Christ.  To  live  greatly  like  Christ  is  not  to 
agonise  daily  over  details,  to  make  anxious  com- 
parisons with  what  we  do  and  what  He  did,  but  a 
much  more  simple  thing.  It  is  to  re-echo  Christ's 
word.  It  is  to  have  that  calm,  patient,  assured 
spirit,  which  reduces  life  simply  to  this  —  a  going 
to  the  Father. 

Not  one  man  in  a  hundred,  probably,  has  a 
central  word  in  his  Christian  life;  and  the  con- 
sequence is  this,  that  there  is  probably  nothing 
in  the  world  so  disorderly  and  slipshod  as  per- 
sonal spiritual  experience.  With  most  of  us  it 
is  a  thing  without  stability  or  permanence,  it  is 
changed  by  every  trifle  we  meet,  by  each  new 
mood  or  thought.  It  is  a  series  of  disconnected 
approaches  to  God,  a  disorderly  succession  of 
religious  impulses,  an  irregulation  of  conduct, 
now  on  this  principle,  now  on  that,  one  day 
because  we  read  something  in  a  book,  the  next 
because  it  was  contradicted  in  another.  And 
when  circumstances  lead  us  really  to  examine 
ourselves,  everything  is  indefinite,  hazy,  unsat- 
isfactory, and  all  that  we  have  for  the  Christian 
life  are  the  shreds  perhaps  of  the  last  few  Sab- 
baths' sermons  and  a  few  borrowed  patches  from 
other  people's  experience.  So  we  live  in  per- 
petual spiritual  oscillation  and  confusion, 
and  we  are  almost  glad  to  let  any  friend  or  any 


84  GOING   TO   THE   FATHER 

book  upset  the  most  cherished  thought  we 
have. 

Now  the  thing  which  steadied  Christ's  life 
was  the  thought  that  He  was  going  to  His 
Father.  This  one  thing  gave  it  unity,  and  har- 
mony, and  success.  During  His  whole  life  He 
never  forgot  His  Word  for  a  moment.  There  is 
no  sermon  of  His  where  it  does  not  occur;  there 
is  no  prayer,  however  brief,  where  it  is  missed. 
In  that  first  memorable  sentence  of  His,  which 
breaks  the  solemn  spell  of  history  and  makes 
one  word  resound  through  thirty  silent  years, 
the  one  word  is  this;  and  all  through  the  after 
years  of  toil  and  travail  "  the  Great  Name  "  was 
always  hovering  on  His  lips,  or  bursting  out  of 
His  heart.  In  its  beginning  and  in  its  end, 
from  the  early  time  when  He  spoke  of  His 
Father's  business  till  He  finished  the  work  that 
was  given  Him  to  do.  His  life,  disrobed  of  all 
circumstance,  was  simply  this,  "  I  go  to  My 
Father." 

If  we  take  this  principle  into  our  own  lives, 
we  shall  find  its  influence  tell  upon  us  in  three 
ways : 

I.  It  explains  Life. 

II.  It  sustains  Life. 

III.  It  completes  Life. 

I.  It  explains  Life.  Few  men,  I  suppose,  do 
not  feel  that  life  needs  explaining.  We  think 
we  see  through  some  things  in  it  —  partially; 
but  most  of  it,  even  to  the  wisest  mind,  is  enig- 


GOING  TO   THE   FATHER  85 

matic.  Those  who  know  it  best  are  the  most 
bewildered  by  it,  and  they  who  stand  upon  the 
mere  rim  of  the  vortex  confess  that  even  for 
them  it  is  overspread  with  cloud  and  shadow. 
What  is  my  life?  whither  do  I  go?  whence  do 
I  come?  these  are  the  questions  which  are  not 
worn  down  yet,  although  the  whole  world  has 
handled  them. 

To  these  questions  there  are  but  three  answers 
—  one  by  the  poet,  the  other  by  the  atheist,  the 
third  by  the  Christian. 

{a)  The  poet  tells  us,  and  philosophy  says  the 
same  only  less  intelligibly,  that  life  is  a  sleep,  a 
dream,  a  shadow.  It  is  a  vapour  that  appeareth 
for  a  little  and  vanisheth  away;  a  meteor  hover- 
ing for  a  moment  between  two  unknown  eter- 
nities ;  bubbles,  which  form  and  burst  upon  the 
river  of  time.  This  philosophy  explains  nothing. 
It  is  a  taking  refuge  in  mystery.  Whither  am 
I  going?  Virtually  the  poet  answers,  "I  am 
going  to  the  Unknown." 

{b)  The  atheist's. answer  is  just  the  opposite. 
He  knows  no  unknown.  He  understands  all, 
for  there  is  nothing  more  than  we  can  see  or 
feel.  Life  is  what  matter  is;  the  soul  is  phos- 
phorus. Whither  am  I  going?  "I  go  to  dust," 
he  says;  "death  ends  all."  And  this  explains 
nothing.  It  is  worse  than  mystery.  It  is  con- 
tradiction.     It  is  utter  darkness. 

{c)  But  the  Christian's  answer  explains  some- 
thing.     Where    is    he    going?      "I    go   to   my 


86  GOING  TO   THE   FATHER 

Father."  This  is  not  a  definition  of  his  death 
—  there  is  no  death  in  Christianity;  it  is  a 
definition  of  the  Christian  life.  All  the  time  it 
is  a  going  to  the  Father.  Some  travel  swiftly, 
some  are  long  upon  the  road,  some  meet  many 
pleasant  adventures  by  the  way,  others  pass 
through  fire  and  peril ;  but  though  the  path  be 
short  or  winding,  and  though  the  pace  be  quick 
or  slow,  it  is  a  going  to  the  Father. 

Now  this  explains  life.  It  explains  the  two 
things  in  life  which  are  most  inexplicable.  For 
one  thing,  it  explains  why  there  is  more  pain  in 
the  world  than  pleasure.  God  knows,  although 
we  scarce  do,  there  is  something  better  than 
pleasure  —  progress.  Pleasure,  mere  pleasure, 
is  animal.  He  gives  that  to  the  butterfly.  But 
progress  is  the  law  of  life  to  the  immortal.  So 
God  has  arranged  our  life  as  progress,  and  its 
working  principle  is  evolution.  Not  that  there 
is  no  pleasure  in  it.  The  Father  is  too  good  to 
His  children  for  that.  But  the  shadows  are  all 
shot  through  it,  for  He  fears  lest  we  should  for- 
get there  is  anything  more.  Yes,  God  is  too 
good  to  leave  His  children  without  indulgences, 
without  far  more  than  we  deserve;  but  He  is 
too  good  to  let  them  spoil  us.  Our  pleasures 
therefore  are  mere  entertainmetits.  We  are  enter- 
tained like  passing  guests  at  the  inns  on  the 
roadside.  Yet  after  even  the  choicest  meals  we 
dare  not  linger.  We  must  take  the  pilgrim's 
staff  again  and  go  on  our  way  to  the  Father. 


GOING  TO   THE   FATHER  87 

Sooner  or  later  we  find  out  that  life  is  not  a 
holiday,  but  a  discipline.  Earlier  or  later  we 
all  discover  that  the  world  is  not  a  playground. 
It  is  quite  clear  God  means  it  for  a  school.  The 
moment  we  forget  that,  the  puzzle  of  life  begins. 
We  try  to  play  in  school ;  the  Master  does  not 
mind  that  so  much  for  its  own  sake,  for  He  likes 
to  see  His  children  happy,  but  in  our  playing 
we  neglect  our  lessons.  We  do  not  see  how 
much  there  is  to  learn,  and  we  do  not  care.  But 
our  Master  cares.  He  has  a  perfectly  over- 
powering and  inexplicable  solicitude  for  our 
education;  and  because  He  loves  us,  He  comes 
into  the  school  sometimes  and  speaks  to  us. 
He  may  speak  very  softly  and  gently,  or  very 
loudly.  Sometimes  a  look  is  enough,  and  we 
understand  it,  like  Peter,  and  go  out  at  once  and 
weep  bitterly.  Sometimes  the  voice  is  like  a 
thunder-clap  startling  a  summer  night.  But  one 
thing  we  maybe  sure  of:  the  task  He  sets  us 
to  is  never  measured  by  our  delinquency.  The 
discipline  may  seem  far  less  than  our  desert,  or 
even  to  our  eye  ten  times  more.  But  it  is  not 
measured  by  these  —  it  is  micasured  by  God's 
solicitude  for  our  progress ;  measured  solely  by 
God's  love;  measured  solely  that  the  scholar 
may  be  better  educated  when  he  arrives  at  his 
Father.  The  discipline  of  life  is  a  preparation 
for  meeting  the  Father.  When  we  arrive  there 
to  behold  His  beauty,  we  must  have  the  educated 
eye;  and  that  must  be  trained  here.     We  must 


88  GOING   TO   THE   FATHER 

become  so  pure  in  heart  —  and  it  needs  much 
practice  —  that  we  shall  see  God.  That  explains 
life  —  why  God  puts  man  in  the  crucible  and 
makes  him  pure  by  fire. 

When  we  see  Him,  we  must  speak  to  Him. 
We  have  that  language  to  learn.  And  that  is 
perhaps  why  God  makes  us  pray  so  much.  Then 
we  are  to  walk  with  Him  in  white.  Our  sancti- 
fication  is  a  putting  on  this  white.  But  there 
has  to  be  much  disrobing  first ;  much  putting 
off  of  filthy  rags.  This  is  why  God  makes  man's 
beauty  to  consume  away  like  the  moth.  He 
takes  away  the  moth's  wings,  and  gives  the 
angel's,  and  man  goes  the  quicker  and  the 
lovelier  to  the  Father. 

It  is  quite  true,  indeed,  besides  all  this,  that 
sometimes  shadow  falls  more  directly  from 
definite  sin.  But  even  then  its  explanation  is 
the  same.  We  lose  our  way,  perhaps,  on  the 
way  to  the  Father.  The  road  is  rough,  and  we 
choose  the  way  with  the  flowers  beside  it,  instead 
of  the  path  of  thorns.  Often  and  often  thus, 
purposely  or  carelessly,  we  lose  the  way.  So 
the  Lord  Jesus  has  to  come  and  look  for  us. 
And  He  may  have  to  lead  us  through  desert  and 
danger,  before  we  regain  the  road  —  before  we 
are  as  we  zvere  • —  and  the  voice  says  to  us  sadly 
once  more,  "This  is  the  way  to  the  Father." 

The  other  thing  which  this  truth  explains  is, 
why  there  is  so  much  that  is  unexplained.  After 
we  have  explained  all,  there  is  much  left.     All 


GOING  TO   THE   FATHER  89 

our  knowledge,  it  is  said,  is  but  different  degrees 
of  darkness.  But  we  know  why  we  do  not  know 
wJiy.  It  is  because  we  are  going  to  our  Father. 
We  are  only  going:  we  are  not  there  yet. 
Therefore  patience.  "What  I  do  thou  knowest 
not  now,  but  thou  shalt  know.  Hereafter,  thou 
shalt  know."  Hereafter,  because  the  chief  joy 
of  life  is  to  have  something  to  look  forward  to. 
But,  hereafter,  for  a  deeper  reason.  Knowledge 
is  only  given  for  action.  Knowing  only  exists 
for  doing:  and  already  nearly  all  men  know  to 
do  more  than  they  do  do.  So,  till  we  do  all  that 
we  know,  God  retains  the  balance  till  we  can 
use  it.  In  the  larger  life  of  the  hereafter,  more 
shall  be  given,  proportionate  to  the  vaster  sphere 
and  the  more  ardent  energies. 

Necessarily,  therefore,  much  of  life  is  still  twi- 
light. But  our  perfect  refuge  is  to  anticipate  a 
little,  and  go  in  thought  to  our  Father,  and,  like 
children  tired  out  with  efforts  to  put  together 
the  disturbed  pieces  of  a  puzzle,  wait  to  take  the 
fragments  to  our  Father. 

And  yet,  even  that  fails  sometimes.  He  seems 
to  hide  from  us  and  the  way  is  lost  indeed.  The 
footsteps  which  went  before  us  up  till  then  cease, 
and  we  are  left  in  the  chill,  dark  night  alone.  If 
we  could  only  see  the  road,  we  should  know  it 
went  to  the  Father.  But  we  cannot  say  we  are 
going  to  the  Father;  we  can  only  say  we  would 
like  to  go.  "  Lord,"  we  cry,  "  we  know  not  whither 
Thou  goest,  and  how  can  we  know  the  way  ? " 


90  GOING  TO   THE   FATHER 

"Whither  I  go,"  is  the  inexpHcable  answer,  "ye 
know  not  now."  Well  is  it  for  those  who  at  such 
times  are  near  enough  to  catch  the  rest:  "But 
ye  shall  know  hereafter," 

II.  Secondly,  and  in  a  few  words,  this  sustains 
Life. 

A  year  or  two  ago  some  of  the  greatest  and 
choicest  minds  of  this  country  laboured,  in  the 
pages  of  one  of  our  magazines,  to  answer  the 
question,  "  Is  Life  worth  living } "  It  was  a 
triumph  for  religion,  some  thought,  that  the 
keenest  intellects  of  the  nineteenth  century  should 
be  stirred  with  themes  like  this.  It  was  not  so ; 
it  was  the  surest  proof  of  the  utter  heathenism  of 
our  age.  Is  Life  worth  living  ?  As  well  ask.  Is 
air  worth  breathing  ?  The  real  question  is  this 
—  taking  the  definition  of  life  here  suggested  — 
Is  it  worth  while  going  to  the  Father .'' 

Yet  we  can  understand  the  question.  On  any 
other  definition  we  can  understand  it.  On  any 
other  definition  life  is  very  far  from  being  worth 
living.  Without  that,  life  is  worse  than  an 
enigma;  it  is  an  inquisition.  Life  is  either  a 
discipline,  or  a  most  horrid  cruelty.  Man's  best 
aims  here  are  persistently  thwarted,  his  purest 
aspirations  degraded,  his  intellect  systematically 
insulted,  his  spirit  of  inquiry  is  crushed,  his  love 
mocked,  and  his  hope  stultified.  There  is  no 
solution  whatever  to  life  without  this ;  there  is 
nothing  to  sustain  either  mind  or  soul  amid  its 
terrible  mystery  but  this ;  there  is  nothing  even 


GOING  TO   THE   FATHER  91 

to  account  for  mind  and  soul.  And  it  will  always 
be  a  standing  miracle  that  men  of  powerful  in- 
tellect who  survey  life,  who  feel  its  pathos  and 
bitterness,  and  are  shut  up  all  the  time  by  their 
beliefs  to  impenetrable  darkness  —  I  say  it  will 
always  be  a  standing  miracle  how  such  men,  with 
the  terrible  unsolved  problems  all  around  them, 
can  keep  reason  from  reeling  and  tottering  from 
its  throne.  If  life  is  not  a  going  to  the  Father,  it 
is  not  only  not  worth  living,  it  is  an  insult  to  the 
living;  and  it  is  one  of  the  strangest  mysteries 
how  men  who  are  large  enough  in  one  direction 
to  ask  that  question,  and  too  limited  in  another  to 
answer  it,  should  voluntarily  continue  to  live  at  all. 

There  is  nothing  to  sustain  life  but  this  thought. 
And  it  does  sustain  life.  Take  even  an  extreme 
case,  and  you  will  see  how.  Take  the  darkest, 
saddest,  most  pathetic  life  of  the  world's  history. 
That  was  Jesus  Christ's.  See  what  this  truth 
practically  was  to  Him.  It  gave  Him  a  life  of 
absolute  composure  in  a  career  of  most  tragic  trials. 

You  have  noticed  often,  and  it  is  inexpressibly 
touching,  how  as  His  life  narrows,  and  troubles 
thicken  around  Him,  He  leans  more  and  more 
upon  this.  And  when  the  last  days  draw  near  — 
as  the  memorable  chapters  in  John  reveal  them 
to  us — with  what  clinging  tenderness  He  alludes 
in  almost  every  second  sentence  to  "  My  Father." 
There  is  a  wistful  eagerness  in  these  closing  words 
which  is  strangely  melting —  like  one  ending  a 
letter  at  sea  when  land  is  coming  into  sis^ht. 


92  GOING  TO   THE   FATHER 

This  is  the  Christian's  only  stay  in  life.  It 
provides  rest  for  his  soul,  work  for  his  character, 
an  object,  an  inconceivably  sublime  object,  for 
his  ambition.  It  does  not  stagger  him  to  be  a 
stranger  here,  to  feel  the  world  passing  away. 
The  Christian  is  like  the  pearl-diver,  who  is  out 
of  the  sunshine  for  a  little,  spending  his  short 
day  amid  rocks  and  weeds  and  dangers  at  the 
bottom  of  the  ocean.  Does  he  desire  to  spend 
his  life  there?  No,  but  his  master  does.  Is  his 
life  there?  No,  his  life  is  up  above.  A  com- 
munication is  open  to  the  surface,  and  the  fresh 
pure  life  comes  down  to  him  from  God.  Is  he 
not  wasting  time  there?  He  is  gathering  pearls 
for  his  Master's  crown.  Will  he  always  stay 
there?  When  the  last  pearl  is  gathered,  the 
"  Come  up  higher "  will  beckon  him  away,  and 
the  weights  which  kept  him  down  will  become  an 
exceeding  weight  of  glory,  and  he  will  go,  he  and 
these  he  brings  with  him,  to  his  Father. 

He  feels,  to  change  the  metaphor,  like  a  man 
in  training  for  a  race.  It  is  months  off  still,  but 
it  is  nearer  him  than  to-morrow,  nearer  than  any- 
thing else.  Great  things  are  always  near  things. 
So  he  lives  in  his  future.  Ask  him  why  this 
deliberate  abstinence  from  luxury  in  eating  and 
drinking.  "  He  is  keeping  his  life,"  he  says. 
Why  this  self-denial,  this  separation  from  worldli- 
ness,  this  change  to  a  quiet  life  from  revelries  far 
into  the  night?  "He  is  keeping  his  life."  He 
cannot  have  both  the  future  and  the  present ;  and 


GOING   TO   THE   FATHER  93 

he  knows  that  every  regulated  hour,  and  every 
temptation  scorned  and  set  aside,  is  adding  a 
nobler  tissue  to  his  frame  and  keeping  his  life  for 
the  prize  that  is  to  come. 

Trial  to  the  Christian  is  training  for  eternity, 
and  he  is  perfectly  contented ;  for  he  knows  that 
"  he  who  loveth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  lose 
it ;  but  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall 
keep  it  unto  life  eternal."  He  is  keeping  his  life 
till  he  gets  to  the  Father. 

in.     Lastly,  in  a  word,  this  completes  life. 

Life  has  been  defined  as  a  going  to  the  Father. 
It  is  quite  clear  that  there  must  come  a  time  in 
the  history  of  all  those  who  live  this  life  when 
they  reach  the  Father.  This  is  the  most  glorious 
moment  of  life.  Angels  attend  at  it.  Those  on 
the  other  side  must  hail  the  completing  of  another 
soul  with  ineffable  rapture.  When  they  are  yet  a 
great  way  off,  the  Father  runs  and  falls  on  their 
neck  and  kisses  them. 

On  this  side  we  call  that  Death.  It  means 
reaching  the  Father.  It  is  not  departure,  it  is 
arrival ;  not  sleep,  but  waking.  For  life  to 
those  who  live  like  Christ  is  not  a  funeral  pro- 
cession. It  is  a  triumphal  march  to  the  Father. 
And  the  entry  at  the  last  in  God's  own  chariot 
in  the  last  hour  of  all.  No,  as  we  watch  a  life 
which  is  going  to  the  Father,  we  cannot  think 
of  night,  of  gloom,  of  dusk  and  sunset.  It  is 
life  which  is  the  night,  and  Death  is  sunrise. 

*'  Pray  moderately,"  says  an  old  saint,  "  for  the 


94  GOING   TO   THE   FATHER 

lives  of  Christ's  people."  Pray  moderately .  We 
may  want  them  on  our  side,  he  means,  but 
Christ  may  need  them  on  His.  He  has  seen 
them  a  great  way  off,  and  set  His  heart  upon 
them,  and  asked  the  Father  to  make  them  come 
quickly.  "I  will,"  He  says,  "that  such  an  one 
should  be  with  Me  where  I  am,"  So  it  is  better 
that  they  should  go  to  the  Father. 

These  words  have  a  different  emphasis  to  differ- 
ent persons.  There  are  three  classes  to  whom 
they  come  home  with  a  peculiar  emphasis :  — 

1.  They  speak  to  those  who  are  staying  away 
from  God.  "  I  do  not  wonder  at  what  men 
suffer,"  says  Ruskin,  "  I  wonder  often  at  what 
they  lose."  My  fellow  pilgrim,  you  do  not  know 
what  you  are  losing  by  not  going  to  the  Father. 
You  live  in  an  appalling  mystery.  You  have 
nothing  to  explain  your  life  nor  to  sustain  it; 
no  boundary  line  on  the  dim  horizon  to  complete 
it.  When  life  is  done  you  are  going  to  leap  into 
the  dark.  You  will  cross  the  dark  river  and  land 
on  the  further  shore  alone.  No  one  will  greet 
you.  You  and  the  Inhabitant  of  Eternity  will 
be  strangers.  Will  you  not  to-day  arise  and  go 
to  your  Father? 

2.  They  speak,  next,  to  all  God's  people. 
Let  lis  remember  that  we  are  going  to  the 
Father.  Even  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God. 
Oh  let  us  live  like  it —  more  simple,  uncomplain- 
ing, useful,  separate,  joyful  as  those  who  march 
with  music,  yet  sober  as  those  who  are  to  com- 


GOING   TO   THE   FATHER  95 

pany  with  Christ.  The  road  is  heavy,  high  road 
and  low  road,  but  we  shall  soon  be  home.  God 
grant  us  a  sure  arrival  in  our  Father's  house. 

3.  And  this  voice  whispers  yet  one  more 
message  to  the  mourning.  Did  Death  end  all  ? 
Is  it  well  with  the  child?  It  is  well.  The  last 
inn  by  the  roadside  has  been  passed  —  that  is 
all,  and  a  voice  called  to  us,  "  Good-bye !  I  go 
to  my  Father." 


NUMBER  IV 


The    Eccentricity 
of  Religion 


"  They  said,  He  is  beside  Himself.''''  —  Mark  iii.  21. 

THE  most  pathetic  life  in  the  history  of  the 
world  is  the  life  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  Those 
who  study  it  find  out,  every  day,  a  fresh  sorrow. 
Before  He  came  it  was  already  foretold  that  He 
would  be  acquainted  with  grief,  but  no  imagination 
had  ever  conceived  the  darkness  of  the  reality. 

It  began  with  one  of  the  bitterest  kinds  of  sor- 
row —  the  sorrow  of  an  enforced  silence.  For 
thirty  years  He  saw,  but  dared  not  act.  The 
wTongs  He  came  to  redress  were  there.  The 
hollowest  religion  ever  known  —  a  mere  piece  of 
acting  —  was  being  palmed  off  around  Him  on 
every  side  as  the  religion  of  the  living  God. 
He  saw  the  poor  trodden  'Hipon,  the  sick  un- 
tended,  the  widow  unavenged.  His  Father's  peo- 
ple scattered.  His  truth  misrepresented,  and  the 
whole  earth  filled  with  hypocrisy  and  violence. 
He  saw  this,  grew  up  amongst  it,  knew  how  to 
cure  it.  Yet  He  was  dumb,  He  opened  not  His 
mouth.     How  He  held  in  His  breaking  spirit,  till 


THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION    97 

the  slow  years  dragged  themselves  out,  it  is  im- 
possible to  comprehend. 

Then  came  the  public  life,  the  necessity  to 
breathe  its  atmosphere :  the  temptation,  the  con- 
tradiction of  sinners,  the  insults  of  the  Pharisees, 
the  attempts  on  His  life,  the  dulness  of  His  disci- 
ples, the  Jews'  rejection  of  Him,  the  apparent  fail- 
ure of  His  cause,  Gethsemane,  Calvary.  Yet  these 
were  but  the  more  marked  shades  in  the  darkness 
which  blackened  the  whole  path  of  the  Man  of 
Sorrows. 

But  we  are  confronted  here  with  an  episode  in 
His  life  which  is  not  included  in  any  of  these ; 
an  episode  which  had  a  bitterness  all  its  own, 
and  such  as  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  few  to  know. 
It  was  not  the  way  the  world  treated  Him  ;  it  was 
not  the  Pharisees ;  it  was  not  something  which 
came  from  His  enemies ;  it  was  something  His 
friends  did.  When  He  left  the  carpenter's  shop 
and  went  out  into  the  wider  life,  His  friends  were 
watching  Him.  For  some  time  back  they  had 
remarked  a  certain  strangeness  in  His  manner. 
He  had  always  been  strange  among  His  brothers, 
but  now  this  was  growing  upon  Him.  He  has 
said  much  stranger  things  of  late,  made  many 
strange  plans,  gone  away  on  curious  errands  to 
strange  places.  What  did  it  mean?  Where  was 
it  to  end  ?  Were  the  family  to  be  responsible  for 
all  this  eccentricity?  One  sad  day  it  culminated. 
It  was  quite  clear  to  them  now.  He  was  not  respon- 
sible for  what  He  was  doing.     It  was  His  mind, 

7 


98    THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION 

alas !  that  had  become  affected.  He  was  beside 
Himself.     In  plain  English,  He  zvas  mad! 

An  awful  thing  to  say  when  it  is  true,  a  more 
awful  thing  when  it  is  not;  a  more  awful  thing 
still  when  the  accusation  comes  from  those  we 
love,  from  those  who  know  us  best.  It  was  the 
voice  of  no  enemy,  it  came  from  His  own  home. 
It  was  His  own  mother,  perhaps,  and  His  brethren, 
who  pointed  this  terrible  finger  at  Him ;  apolo- 
gising for  Him,  entreating  the  people  never  to 
mind  Him,  He  was  beside  Himself — He  was 
mad. 

There  should  have  been  one  spot  surely  upon 
God's  earth  for  the  Son  of  Man  to  lay  His  head 
—  one  roof,  at  least,  in  Nazareth,  with  mother's 
ministering  hand  and  sister's  love  for  the  weary 
Worker.  But  His  very  home  is  closed  to  Him. 
He  has  to  endure  the  furtive  glances  of  eyes 
which  once  loved  Him,  the  household  watching 
Him  and  whispering  one  to  another,  the  cruel 
suspicion,  the  laying  hands  upon  Him,  hands 
which  were  once  kind  to  Him,  and  finally,  the 
overwhelming  announcement  of  the  verdict  of 
His  family,  "  He  is  beside  Himself."  Truly  He 
came  to  His  own,  and  His  own  received  Him 
not. 

What  makes  it  seemly  to  dig  up  this  harrow- 
ing memory  to-day,  and  emphasise  a  thought 
which  we  cannot  but  feel  lies  on  the  borderland 
of  blasphemy?  Because  the  significance  of  that 
scene  is  still  intense.      It  has  a  peculiar  lesson 


THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION    99 

for  us  who  arc  to  profess  ourselves  followers  of 
Christ  —  a  lesson  in  the  counting  of  the  cost. 
Christ's  life,  from  first  to  last,  was  a  dramatised 
parable  —  too  short  and  too  significant  to  allow 
even  a  scene  which  well  might  rest  in  solemn 
shadow  to  pass  by  unimproved. 

I.  Observe,  from  the  world's  standpoint,  the 
cJiarge  is  true.  It  is  useless  to  denounce  this 
as  a  libel,  a  bitter,  blasphemous  calumny.  It  is 
not  so  —  it  is  true.  There  was  no  alternative. 
Either  He  was  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living 
God,  or  He  was  beside  Himself  A  holy  life  is 
always  a  phenomenon.  The  world  knoweth  it 
not.     It  is  either  supernatural  or  morbid. 

For  what  is  being  beside  oneself  ?  What  is 
madness?  It  is  eccentricity  —  ec-centr-icity  — 
having  a  different  centre  from  other  people. 
Here  is  a  man,  for  instance,  who  devotes  his 
life  to  collecting  objects  of  antiquarian  interest, 
old  coins  perhaps,  or  old  editions  of  books. 
His  centre  is  odd,  his  life  revolves  in  an  orbit 
of  his  own.  Therefore,  his  friends  say,  he  is 
eccentric. 

Or  here  is  an  engine  with  many  moving  wheels, 
large  and  small,  cogged  and  plain,  but  each 
revolving  upon  a  central  axis,  and  describing  a 
perfect  circle.  But  at  one  side  there  is  one 
small  wheel  which  does  not  turn  in  a  circle. 
Its  motion  is  different  from  all  the  rest,  and  the 
changing  curve  it  describes  is  unlike  any  ordi- 
nary line  of  the  mathematician.      The  engineer 


lOO  THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION 

tells  you  that  this  is  tJie  eccentric,  because  it  has 
a  peculiar  centre. 

Now  when  Jesus  Christ  came  among  men  He 
found  them  nearly  all  revolving  in  one  circle. 
There  was  but  one  centre  to  human  life  —  self 
Man's  chief  end  was  to  glorify  himself  and  en- 
joy himself  for  ever.  Then,  as  now,  by  the  all 
but  unanimous  consensus  of  the  people,  this 
present  world  was  sanctioned  as  the  legitimate 
object  of  all  human  interest  and  enterprise. 
By  the  whole  gravitation  of  society,  Jesus  —  as 
a  man  —  must  have  been  drawn  to  the  very 
verge  of  this  vast  vortex  of  self-indulgence, 
personal  ease  and  pleasure,  which  had  sucked 
in  the  populations  of  the  world  since  time  be- 
gan. But  he  stepped  back.  He  refused  abso- 
lutely to  be  attracted.  He  put  everything  out 
of  His  life  that  had  even  a  temptation  in  it  to 
the  world's  centre.  He  humbled  Himself  — 
there  is  no  place  in  the  world's  vortex  for  hum- 
bleness. He  became  of  no  reputation  —  nor  for 
namelessness.  He  emptied  Himself — gravitation 
cannot  act  on  emptiness.  So  the  prince  of  this 
world  came,  but  found  nothing  in  Him.  He 
found  nothing,  because  the  true  centre  of  that 
life  was  not  to  be  seen.  It  was  with  God.  The 
unseen  and  the  eternal  moved  Him.  He  did  not 
seek  His  own  happiness,  but  that  of  others.  He 
went  about  doing  good.  His  object  in  going 
about  was  not  gain,  but  to  do  good. 

Now  all  this  was  very  eccentric.     It  was  living 


THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION    loi 

on  new  lines  altogether.  He  did  God's  will.  He 
pleased  not  Himself.  His  centre  was  to  one 
side  of  self.  He  was  beside  Himself.  From  the 
world's  view-point  it  was  simply  madness. 

Think  of  this  idea  of  His,  for  instance,  of  start- 
ing out  into  life  with  so  quixotic  an  idea  as  that 
of  doing  good  ;  the  simplicity  of  the  expectation 
that  the  world  ever  would  become  good ;  this 
irrational  talk  about  meat  to  eat  that  they  knew 
not  of,  about  living  water;  these  extraordinary 
beatitudes,  predicating  sources  of  happiness 
which  had  never  been  heard  of;  these  paradoxi- 
cal utterances  of  which  He  was  so  fond,  such  as 
that  the  way  to  find  life  was  to  lose  it,  and  to  lose 
life  in  this  world  was  to  keep  it  to  life  eternal. 
What  could  these  be  but  mere  hallucination  and 
dreaming!  It  was  inevitable  that  men  should 
laugh  and  sneer  at  Him.  He  was  unusual.  He 
would  not  go  with  the  multitude.  And  men 
were  expected  to  go  with  the  multitude.  What 
the  multitude  thought,  said,  and  did,  were  the 
right  things  to  have  thought,  said,  and  done. 
And  if  any  one  thought,  said,  or  did  differently, 
his  folly  be  on  his  own  head,  he  was  beside  him- 
self, he  was  mad. 

II.  Every  man  who  lives  like  Christ  produces 
the  same  reaction  upon  the  world.  This  is  an  in- 
evitable consequence.  What  men  said  of  Him, 
if  we  are  true  to  Him,  they  will  say  of  you  and 
me.  The  servant  is  not  above  his  master.  If 
they  have  persecuted  Me,  they  will  also  persecute 


I02   THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION 

you.  A  Christian  must  be  different  from  other 
people.  Time  has  not  changed  the  essential  dif- 
ference between  the  spirit  of  the  world  and  the 
spirit  of  Christ.  They  are  radically  and  eternally 
different.  And  from  the  world's  standpoint  still 
Christianity  is  eccentricity.  For  what,  again,  is 
Christianity?  It  is  the  projection  into  the  world 
of  these  lines  along  which  Christ  lived.  It  is 
a  duplicating  in  modern  life  of  the  spirit,  the 
method,  and  the  aims  of  Jesus,  a  following  through 
the  world  the  very  footprints  He  left  behind. 
And  if  these  footprints  were  at  right  angles  to 
the  broad  beaten  track  the  world  went  along  in 
His  day,  they  will  be  so  still.  It  is  useless  to  say 
the  distinction  has  broken  down.  These  two 
roads  are  still  at  right  angles.  The  day  may  be, 
when  the  path  of  righteousness  shall  be  the  glo- 
rious highway  for  all  the  earth.  But  it  is  not  now. 
Christ  did  not  expect  it  would  be  so.  He  made 
provision  for  the  very  opposite.  He  prepared 
His  Church  beforehand  for  the  reception  it  would 
get  in  the  world.  He  gave  no  hope  that  it  would 
be  an  agreeable  one.  Light  must  conflict  with 
darkness,  truth  with  error.  There  is  no  sanc- 
tioned place  in  the  world  as  yet  for  a  life  with 
God  as  its  goal,  and  self-denial  as  its  principle. 
Meekness  must  be  victimised ;  spirituality  must 
be  misunderstood ;  true  religion  must  be  bur- 
lesqued. Holiness  must  make  a  strong  ferment 
and  reaction,  in  family  or  community,  office  or 
workshop,  wherever   it  is  introduced.      "  Think 


THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION    103 

not  that  I  am  come  to  send  peace  on  earth,  I 
came  not  to  send  peace,  but  a  sword.  For  I  am 
come  to  set  a  man  at  variance  against  his  father, 
and  the  daughter  against  her  mother,  and  the 
daughter-in-law  against  her  mother-in-law,  and  a 
man's  foes  [He  might  well  say  it]  shall  be  they 
of  his  own  household." 

True  religion  is  no  milk-and-water  experience. 
It  is  a  fire.  It  is  a  sword.  It  is  a  burning,  con- 
suming heat,  which  must  radiate  upon  everything 
around.  The  change  to  the  Christlike  Life  is  so 
remarkable  that  when  one  really  undergoes  it,  he 
cannot  find  words  in  common  use  by  which  he 
can  describe  its  revolutionary  character.  He  has 
to  recall  the  very  striking  phrases  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, which  once  seemed  such  exaggerations : 
"  A  new  man,  a  new  creature;  a  new  heart,  a  new 
birth."  His  very  life  has  been  taken  down  and 
re-crystallised  round  the  new  centre.  He  has 
been  born  again. 

The  impression  his  friends  receive  from  him 
now  is  the  impression  of  eccentricity.  The  change 
is  bound  to  strike  them,  for  it  is  radical,  central. 
They  will  call  in  unworthy  motives  to  account  for 
the  difference ;  they  will  say  it  is  a  mere  tempo- 
rary fit,  and  will  pass  away.  They  will  say  he 
has  shown  a  weakness  which  they  did  not  expect 
from  him,  and  try  to  banter  him  out  of  his  novel 
views  and  stricter  life.  This,  in  its  mildest  form, 
is  the  modern  equivalent  of  "  He  is  beside  him- 
self."    And  it  cannot  be  helped.     It  is  the  legiti- 


104  THE   ECCENTRICITY  OF  RELIGION 

mate  reproach  of  the  Cross.  The  words  are  hard, 
but  not  new.  Has  it  not  come  down  that  long 
hne  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy?  Its 
history,  alas !  is  well  known.  It  fell  on  the  first 
Christians  in  a  painful  and  even  vulgar  form. 

The  little  Church  had  just  begun  to  live.  The 
disciples  stood  after  the  great  day  of  Pentecost 
contemplating  that  first  triumph  of  Christ's  cause 
with  unbounded  joy.  At  last  an  impression  had 
been  made  upon  the  world.  The  enterprise  was 
going  to  succeed,  and  the  whole  earth  would  fill 
with  God's  glory.  They  little  calculated  the  im- 
pression they  made  on  the  world  was  the  impres- 
sion of  their  own  ridiculousness.  "  What  meaneth 
this?"  the  people  asked.  "It  meant,"  the  dis- 
ciples would  have  said,  "  that  the  Holy  Ghost, 
who  was  to  come  in  His  name,  was  here,  that 
God's  grace  was  stirring  the  hearts  of  men  and 
moving  them  to  repent."  The  people  had  a  dif- 
ferent answer.  "  These  men,"  was  the  coarse 
reply,  "are  full  of  new  wine."  Not  mad  this 
time  —  they  are  intoxicated! 

Time  passed,  and  Paul  tells  us  the  charge  was 
laid  at  his  door.  He  had  made  that  great  speech 
in  the  hall  of  the  Caesarean  palace  before  Agrippa 
and  Festus.  He  told  them  of  the  grace  of  God 
in  his  conversion,  and  closed  with  an  eloquent 
confession  of  his  Lord.  What  impression  had  he 
made  upon  his  audience?  The  impression  of  a 
madman.  "As  he  thus  spake  for  himself,  Festus 
said  with  a   loud  voice,  '  Paul !   thou  art  beside 


THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION    105 

thyself;  much  learning  hath  made  thee  mad.'" 
Poor  Paul !  How  you  feel  for  him  when  the  cruel 
blow  was  struck.  But  there  was  no  answer  to  it. 
From  their  view-point  it  was  perfectly  true.  And 
so  it  has  been  with  all  saints  to  the  present  hour. 
It  matters  not  if  they  speak  like  Paul,  the  words 
of  soberness.  It  matters  not  if  they  are  men  of 
burning  zeal  like  Xavier  and  Whitfield,  men  of 
calm  spirit  like  Tersteegen  and  a  Kempis,  men 
of  learning  like  Augustine,  or  of  ordinary  gifts 
like  Wesley,  —  the  effect  of  all  saintly  lives  upon 
the  Vv'orld  is  the  same.  They  are  to  the  Jews  a 
stumbling-block  and  to  the  Greeks  foolishness. 

It  is  not  simply  working  Christianity  that  is  an 
offence.  The  whole  spiritual  life,  to  the  natural 
man,  is  an  eccentric  thing.  Take  such  a  mani- 
festation, for  instance,  as  Prayer.  The  scientific 
men  of  the  day  have  examined  it  and  pronounced 
it  hallucination.  Or  take  Public  Prayer.  A  con- 
gregation of  people  with  bowed  heads,  shut  eyes, 
hushed  voices,  invoking,  confessing,  pleading,  en- 
treating One  who,  though  not  seen,  is  said  to  see, 
who,  speaking  not,  is  said  to  answer.  There  is  no 
other  name  for  this  incantation  from  the  world's 
standpoint  than  eccentricity,  delusion,  madness. 
We  are  not  ashamed  of  the  terms.  They  are  the 
guarantee  of  quality.  And  all  high  quality  in  the 
world  is  subject  to  the  same  reproach.  For  we 
are  discussing  a  universal  principle.  It  applies 
to  inventors,  to  discoverers,  to  philosophers,  to 
poets,  to  all  men  who  have  been  better  or  higher 


io6   THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF  RELIGION 

than  their  time.  These  men  are  never  understood 
by  their  contemporaries.  And  if  there  arc  mar- 
tyrs of  science,  the  centres  of  science  being  in 
this  world,  seen,  demonstrated,  known,  how  much 
more  must  there  be  martyrs  for  rehgion  whose 
centre  is  beyond  the  reach  of  earthly  eye? 

III.  It  follows  from  this,  that  the  more  active 
religion  is,  the  more  unpopular  it  must  be. 

Christ's  religion  did  not  trouble  His  friends  at 
first.  For  thirty  years,  at  all  events,  they  were 
content  to  put  up  with  it.  But  as  it  grew  in 
intensity  they  lost  patience.  When  He  called 
the  twelve  disciples,  they  gave  Him  up.  His 
work  went  on,  the  world  said  nothing  for  some 
time.  But  as  His  career  became  aberrant  more 
and  more,  the  family  feeling  spread,  gained 
universal  ground.  Even  the  most  beautiful  and 
tender  words  He  uttered  were  quoted  in  evidence 
of  His  state.  For  John  tells  us  that  after  that 
exquisite  discourse  in  the  tenth  chapter  about 
the  Good  .Shepherd,  there  was  a  division  among 
the  Jews  for  these  sayings :  "  And  many  of  them 
said.  He  hath  a  devil  and  is  mad.  Why  hear  ye 
Him?"     It  seemed  utter  raving. 

Have  you  ever  noticed — ^  and  there  is  nothing 
more  touching  in  history  —  how  Christ's  path 
narrov/ed  ? 

The  first  great  active  period  is  called  in  books 
The  year  of  public  favour.  On  the  whole  it  was 
a  year  of  triumph.  The  world  received  Him  for  a 
time.     Vast  crowds  followed  Him.     The  Baptist's 


THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION    107 

audience  left  him  and  gathered  round  the  new 
voice.  Palestine  rang  with  the  name  of  Jesus. 
Noblemen,  rulers,  rabbis,  vied  with  one  another 
in  entertaining  Him.  But  the  excitement  died 
down  suddenly  and  soon. 

The  next  year  is  called  The  year  of  opposition. 
The  applause  was  over.  The  crowds  thinned. 
On  every  hand  He  was  obstructed.  The  Sad- 
ducees  left  Him.  The  Pharisees  left  Him.  The 
political  party  were  roused  into  opposition.  The 
Jews,  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  gave  Him  up. 
His  path  was  narrowing. 

With  the  third  period  came  the  end.  The  path 
was  very  narrow  now.  There  were  but  twelve  left 
to  Him  when  the  last  act  of  the  drama  opens. 
They  are  gathered  on  the  stage  together  for  the 
last  time.  But  it  must  narrow  still.  One  of  the 
disciples,  after  receiving  the  sop,  goes  out.  Eleven 
are  left  Him.  Peter  soon  follows.  There  are  but 
ten.  One  by  one  they  leave  the  stage,  till  all  for- 
sook Him  and  fled,  and  He  is  left  to  die  alone. 
Well  might  He  cry,  as  He  hung  there  in  this  awful 
solitude —  as  if  even  God  had  forgotten  Him,  "  My 
God,  my  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me?" 

But  this  is  not  peculiar  to  Jesus.  It  is  typical 
of  the  life  of  every  Christian.  His  path,  too,  must 
narrow.  As  he  grows  in  grace,  he  grows  in  isola- 
tion. He  feels  that  God  is  detaching  his  life  from 
all  around  it  and  drawing  him  to  Himself  for  a 
more  intimate  fellowship.  But  as  the  communion 
is  nearer,  the  chasm  which  separates  him  from  his 


io8   THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION 

fellow-man  must  widen.  The  degree  of  a  man's 
religion,  indeed,  is  to  be  gauged  by  the  degree  of 
his  rejection  by  the  world.  With  the  early  Chris- 
tians was  not  this  the  commonest  axiom,  "  We 
told  you  before,"  did  not  Paul  warn  them,  "  that 
we  should  suffer"?  "  Unto  some  it  was  given  in 
the  behalf  of  Christ  not  only  to  believe  on  Him, 
but  also  to  suffer  for  His  sake."  It  was  the  posi- 
tion of  honour,  as  it  were,  in  the  family  of  God 
to  be  counted  worthy  of  being  persecuted  for  the 
sake  of  Christ. 

It  is  a  sad  reflection  that,  as  in  the  case  of 
Christ,  the  keenest  suffering  may  come  sometimes 
still  from  one's  own  family  circle.  Among  our 
friends  there  may  be  one  on  whom  we  all  look 
askance  —  one  who  is  growing  up  in  the  beauty 
of  holiness,  and  we  not  knowing  what  it  is  that 
makes  him  strange.  It  often  needs  Death  to 
teach  us  the  beauty  of  a  life  which  has  been  lived 
beside  our  own ;  and  we  only  know  the  worth  of 
it  when  God  proves  it  by  taking  it  to  Himself, 

Finally,  it  may  be  objected  to  all  this  that  if 
eccentricity  is  a  virtue,  it  is  easily  purchased. 
Any  one  can  set  up  for  an  eccentric  character. 
And  if  that  is  the  desideratum  of  religion  we 
shall  have  candidates  enough  for  the  office.  But 
it  remains  to  define  the  terms  on  which  a  Chris- 
tian shall  be  eccentric  —  Christ's  own  terms.  And 
let  them  be  guides  to  us  in  our  eccentricity,  for 
without  them  we  shall  be  not  Christians,  but 
fanatics. 


THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION    109 

The  qualities  which  distinguish  the  eccentricity 
of  godhness  from  all  other  eccentricities  are  three ; 
and  we  gather  them  all  from  the  Life  of  Christ. 

1.  Notice,  His  eccentricity  was  not  destructive. 
Christ  took  the  world  as  He  found  it,  He  left  it 
as  it  was.  He  had  no  quarrel  with  existing  insti- 
tutions. He  did  not  overthrow  the  church  —  He 
went  to  church.  He  said  nothing  against  politics 
—  He  supported  the  government  of  the  country. 
He  did  not  denounce  Society  —  His  first  public 
action  was  to  go  to  a  marriage.  His  great  aim,  in 
fact,  outwardly,  and  all  along,  was  to  be  as  nor- 
mal, as  little  eccentric  as  possible.  The  true 
fanatic  always  tries  the  opposite.  The  Spirit 
alone  was  singular  in  Jesus ;  a  fanatic  always 
spoils  his  cause  by  extending  it  to  the  letter. 
Christ  came  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.  A 
fanatic  comes  not  to  fulfil,  but  to  destroy.  If  we 
would  follow  the  eccentricity  of  our  Master,  let 
it  not  be  in  asceticism,  in  denunciation,  in  punc- 
tiliousness, and  scruples  about  trifles,  but  in  large- 
ness of  tieart,  singleness  of  eye,  true  breadth  of 
character,  true  love  to  men,  and  heroism  for 
Christ. 

2,  It  was  perfectly  composed.  We  think  of  ec- 
centricity as  associated  with  frenzy,  nervousness, 
excitableness,  ungovernable  enthusiasm.  But  the 
life  of  Jesus  was  a  calm.  It  was  a  life  of  marvel- 
lous composure.  The  storms  were  all. about  it, 
tumult  and  tempest,  tempest  and  tumult,  waves 
breaking  over  Him  all  the  time  till  the  worn  body 


no   THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION 

was  laid  in  the  grave.  But  the  inner  life  was  as 
a  sea  of  glass.  It  was  a  life  of  perfect  compos- 
ure. To  come  near  it  even  now  is  to  be  calmed 
and  soothed.  Go  to  it  at  any  moment,  the  great 
calm  is  there.  The  request  to  "  come  "  at  any 
moment  was  a  standing  invitation  all  through  His 
life.  Come  unto  Me  at  My  darkest  hour,  in  My 
heaviest  trial,  on  My  busiest  day,  and  I  will  give 
you  Rest.  And  when  the  very  bloodhounds  were 
gathering  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  to  hunt  Him 
down,  did  He  not  turn  to  the  quaking  group 
around  Him  and  bequeath  to  them  —  a  last  legacy 
—  "My  Peace"? 

There  was  no  frenzy  about  His  life,  no  excite- 
ment. In  quietness  and  confidence  the  most  ter- 
rible days  sped  past.  In  patience  and  composure 
the  most  thrilling  miracles  were  wrought.  Men 
came  unto  Him,  and  they  found  not  restlessness, 
but  Rest.  Composure  is  to  be  had  for  faith.  We 
shall  be  worse  than  fanatics  if  we  attempt  to  go 
along  the  lonely  path  with  Christ  without  this 
spirit.  We  shall  do  harm,  not  good.  We  shall 
leave  half-done  work.  We  shall  wear  out  before 
our  time.  Do  not  say,  "  Life  is  short."  Christ's 
life  was  short;  yet  He  finished  the  work  that  was 
given  Him  to  do.  He  was  never  in  a  hurry. 
And  if  God  has  given  us  anything  to  do  for 
Him,  He  will  give  time  enough  to  finish  it  with 
a  repose  like  Christ's. 

3.   This  life  was  consistent. 

From  the  Christian  standpoint  a  consistent  life 


THE   ECCENTRICITY   OF   RELIGION    in 

is  the  only  sane  life.  It  is  not  worth  while  being 
religious  without  being  thorough.  An  inconsist- 
ent Christian  is  the  true  eccentric.  He  is  the 
true  phenomenon  in  the  religious  world ;  to  his 
brother  Christian  the  only  madman.  For  mad- 
ness, in  a  sense,  is  inconsistency;  madness  is 
incoherency,  irrelevancy,  disconnectedness ;  and 
surely  there  is  nothing  more  disconnected  than  a 
belief  in  God  and  Eternity  and  no  corresponding 
life.  And  that  man  is  surely  beside  himself  who 
assumes  the  name  of  Christ,  pledges  perhaps  in 
sacramental  wine,  to  be  faithful  to  His  name  and 
cause,  and  who  from  one  year  to  another  never 
lifts  a  finger  to  help  it.  The  man  who  is  really 
under  a  delusion,  is  he  who  bears  Christ's  name, 
who  has  no  uneasiness  about  the  quality  of  his 
life,  nor  any  fear  for  the  future,  and  whose  true 
creed  is  that 

He  lives  for  himself,  he  thinks  for  himself, 

For  himself,  and  none  beside; 
Just  as  if  Jesus  had  never  lived, 

As  if  He  had  never  died. 

Yes,  a  consistent  eccentricity  is  the  only  sane  life. 
"  An  enthusiastic  religion  is  the  perfection  of 
common  sense."  And  to  be  beside  oneself  for 
Christ's  sake  is  to  be  beside  Christ,  which  is 
man's  chief  end  for  time  and  eternity. 


NUMBER  V 

<<^To  Me  to  Live 
is  Christ" 

(In  connection  with  Acts  ix.  1-18) 
Philippians  i.  21 

THERE  is  no  more  significant  sign  of  the 
days  in  which  we  live  than  the  interest 
society  seems  to  be  taking  in  the  biographies 
of  great  men.  Almost  all  the  more  popular 
recent  books,  for  instance  —  the  books  which 
every  one  is  reading  and  has  to  read  —  come 
under  the  catalogue  of  biography;  and,  to  meet 
the  demand,  two  or  three  times  in  each  season 
the  market  has  to  be  supplied  with  the  lives,  in 
minute  detail,  of  men  who  but  for  this  would  per- 
haps have  lain  in  unnoticed  graves. 

This  thirst  for  memoirs  and  lives  and  letters  is 
not  at  all  to  be  put  down  in  every  case  to  the 
hero  worship  which  is  natural  to  every  heart.  It 
means,  perhaps,  a  higher  thing  than  this.  It 
means,  in  the  first  place,  that  great  living  is  being 
appreciated  for  its  own  sake ;  and,  in  the  second, 
that  great  living  is  being  imitated.  If  it  is  true 
that  any  of  us  are  beginning  to  appreciate  great- 
ness for  its  own  sake  —  greatness,  that  is  to  say, 


"TO   ME   TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST"     113 

in  the  sense  of  great  and  true  living — it  is  one 
of  the  most  hopeful  symptoms  of  our  history. 
And  if  we  are,  further,  going  on  from  the  mere 
admiration  of  great  men  to  try  and  live  like 
them,  we  are  obeying  one  of  the  happiest  im- 
pulses of  our  being.  There  is  indeed  no  finer 
influence  abroad  than  the  influence  of  great  men 
in  great  books,  and  all  that  literature  can  do  in 
supplying  the  deformed  world  with  worthy  and 
shapely  models  is  entitled  to  gratitude  and 
respect. 

But  a  shadow  sometimes  comes  over  this 
thought  of  the  magnetic  attraction  which  great- 
ness is  having  upon  our  age — the  thought  how 
hard  it  is  to  get  our  greatness ///rr.  The  well  is 
deep,  it  may  be,  and  the  fountain  sparkles  to 
the  eye ;  but  we  ask  perhaps  for  a  guarantee  of 
quality  in  vain.  Each  new  ideal  we  adjust  our 
life  to  copy  turns  out  to  have  its  adulteration  of 
selfishness  or  pride,  like  the  one  we  studied  last, 
till  the  pattern  we  sought  to  follow  surprises  us 
by  becoming  a  beacon  for  us  to  shun. 

There  are  a  few  biographies,  however,  where 
men  may  find  their  greatness  pure ;  and  amongst 
them  is  one  familiar  writing  which,  though  seldom 
looked  at  as  biographical  in  this  sense,  really 
contains  the  life  and  letters  of  the  greatest  man 
probably  of  human  history.  That  man  was  Paul. 
The  life  of  Paul  the  man,  apart  from  the  theology 
of  Paul  the  Apostle,  is  a  legitimate  and  fruitful 
study  from  the  mere  standpoint  of  the  biography 


114     "TO   ME   TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST" 

of  a  great  and  successful  life.  Judged  by  his  in- 
fluence on  human  history,  no  single  life  is  entitled 
to  more  admiration  for  what  it  has  done,  or  in- 
deed more  worthy  of  imitation  for  what  it  was. 
And  in  our  quest  after  a  true  life,  a  worthy  and 
satisfying  life,  there  may  be  some  light  for  us  in 
this  old  biography  which  we  have  missed  per- 
haps in  the  lives  of  later  men. 

If  we  were  to  begin  by  seeking  an  appropriate 
motto  for  Paul's  life,  we  should  not  need  to  go 
further  than  the  quotation  which  forms  our  text. 
This  fragment  from  one  of  his  own  letters  lets  us 
in  at  once  to  the  whole  secret  of  his  life.  The 
true  discovery  of  a  character  is  the  discovery  of 
its  ideals.  Paul  spares  us  any  speculation  in  his 
case.  "  To  me  to  live,"  he  says,  "  is  Christ." 
This  is  the  motto  of  his  life,  the  ruling  passion  of 
it,  which  at  once  explains  the  nature  of  his  suc- 
cess and  accounts  for  it.  He  lives  for  Christ. 
"  To  me  to  live  is  Christ." 

Now  here  at  the  outset  is  a  valuable  practical 
point  settled  in  this  biography.  When  we  turn 
to  the  biographies  of  most  great  men,  we  find 
either  no  key  or  a  very  complex  one ;  and  we 
rise  from  the  perusal  with  nothing  more  than  a 
vague  desire  to  do  better,  but  with  no  discovery 
how.  We  gain  stimulus,  indeed,  but  no  knowl- 
edge, which  is  simply  injurious.  We  are  braced 
up  enthusiastically  for  a  little,  and  then  do  noth- 
ing. At  the  end  of  it  all  we  are  not  better,  we 
are    only  exhausted.     This    is    the    reason  why 


"TO  ME   TO   LIVE    IS   CHRIST"     115 

biography-hunters  often,  after  long  dogging  the 
footsteps  of  greatness,  find  that  they  arc  perhaps 
no  further  on  the  road  to  it  themselves,  but 
rather  more  inchned  than  before  to  He  down 
where   they  were. 

But  Paul  explicitly  announces  to  us  the  work- 
ing principle  of  his  life.  If  the  lines  are  great 
lines,  there  is  nothing  mysterious  about  them. 
If  we  want  to  live  like  Paul,  we  have  simply  to 
live  for  Christ ;  Christ  our  life  on  one  side,  our 
life  for  Christ  on  the  other,  and  both  summed  up 
together  in  Paul's  epitome :  "  To  me  to  live  is 
Christ." 

This  being  the  clue  to  Paul's  life,  the  instructive 
question  next  arises.  What  exactly  did  Paul  mean 
by  this  principle,  and  how  did  he  come  to  find  it 
out?  But  the  question,  "What  is  this  object  of 
life?"  is  so  closely  bound  up  with  how  Paul  came 
to  have  this  object  of  life,  that  the  answer  to  the 
last  question  will  form  at  once  an  explanation 
and  an  illustration  of  the  first. 

Therefore  let  us  go  at  once  for  the  answer  to 
the  life  itself.  Great  principles  are  always  best 
and  freshest  when  studied  from  the  life,  and  it  so 
happens  that  a  circumstance  in  Paul's  life  makes 
it  peculiarly  easy  to  act  on  this  rule  here. 

That  circumstance  was  that  Paul  had  two  lives. 
Many  men  besides  Paul  have  had  two  lives,  but 
the  line  is  cleaner  cut  in  Paul's  case  than  in  al- 
most any  biography  we  have. 

Both  lives  were  somewhere  about   the   same 


ii6     "TO    ME  TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST" 

length,  so  far  as  we  know,  but  so  distinct  in  their 
general  features  and  details  that  Paul  had  not 
only  two  lives,  but,  as  if  to  mark  the  distinction 
more  strikingly,  two  names.  Let  us  look  for  a 
moment  at  the  first  of  these  lives  —  the  reason 
will  appear  presently. 

Paul's  first  life,  as  we  all  know,  was  spent  under 
the  most  auspicious  circumstances,  and  for  cer- 
tain reasons  it  will  be  worth  while  running  over 
it.  Born  of  a  family  which  belonged  to  the  most 
select  theological  school  of  that  day,  the  son  was 
early  looked  upon  as  at  once  the  promise  of  his 
parents  and  the  hope  of  their  religion.  They 
sent  him  when  a  mere  lad  to  Jerusalem,  and  en- 
rolled him  as  a  student  in  the  most  distinguished 
college  of  the  time.  After  running  a  brilliant 
college  career,  and  sitting  for  many  years  at  the 
feet  of  the  greatest  learning  the  Jewish  capital 
could  boast,  we  find  him  bursting  upon  the  world 
with  his  splendid  talents,  and  taking  a  place  at 
once  in  the  troubled  political  movements  of  the 
day.  It  was  impossible  for  such  a  character  with 
his  youth's  enthusiasm  and  a  Pharisee's  pride  to 
submit  to  the  tame  life  of  a  temple  Rabbi,  and  he 
sees  his  opportunity  in  the  rise  of  the  Christian 
sect.  Here,  at  last,  he  would  match  his  abilities 
in  a  contest  which  would  gain  him  at  once  a  field 
of  exercise  and  a  name.  So  far,  doubtless,  he 
thought  his  first  life  great. 

Into  his  work  of  persecution  he  seems  to  have 
next  entered  witk  all  an  inquisitor's  zest.     His 


"TO   ME   TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST"     117 

conspicuous  place  among  the  murderers  of  the 
first  martyr  stamped  him  at  once  as  a  leader, 
and  gave  him  the  first  taste  of  a  popularity 
which,  but  for  the  interruption  of  the  hand  of  God, 
had  ended  perhaps  disastrously  to  the  struggling 
Christian  Church.  His  success  as  an  inquisitor 
is  recognised  in  the  highest  quarters  of  the  land ; 
and  the  young  man's  fortune  is  made.  No  young 
man  of  that  time  perhaps  had  such  prospects  now 
as  Saul.  "  He  was  a  man  raised  up  for  the  emer- 
gency," said  all  Jerusalem,  and  henceforth  the 
Jewish  world  was  at  his  feet.  Courted  as  the 
rising  man  of  his  day  and  flushed  with  success, 
he  leaves  no  stone  unturned  to  find  fresh  oppor- 
tunities of  adding  to  his  influence  and  power. 
And  as  he  climbed  each  rung  of  the  ladder  of 
fame,  we  can  imagine,  as  a  great  student  of  Paul 
has  said,  how  his  heart  swelled  within  him  as  he 
read  these  words  at  night  from  the  Book  of  Wis- 
dom: "  I  shall  have  estimation  among  the  multi- 
tude, and  honour  with  the  elders,  though  I  be 
young.  I  shall  be  found  of  a  quick  conceit  in 
judgment,  and  shall  be  admired  in  the  sight  of 
great  men.  When  I  hold  my  tongue  they  shall 
abide  my  leisure,  and  when  I  speak  they  shall 
give  good  ear  unto  me."  Such  was  the  man  who 
said,  "  To  me  to  live  .is  Christ." 

Upon  the  little  Church  at  Jerusalem  he  has 
already  wreaked  his  vengeance  to  the  full.  The 
town  and  neighbourhood  at  last  are  well  nigh 
ridded  of  the  pest,  and,  an  unlooked-for  calam- 


ii8     "TO   ME  TO   LIVE   IS    CHRIST" 

ity,  in  the  height  of  his  triumph  Saul  finds  his 
occupation  gone.  Dispersed  in  all  directions, 
members  of  the  little  band  have  found  their  way 
in  secret  through  Judaea  and  Samaria,  through 
Syria  and  Phoenicia,  even  into  strange  cities. 
And  Paul  finds  round  about  Jerusalem  no  fuel  to 
feed  the  martyrs'  fire  or  add  more  lustre  to  his 
name. 

But  there  is  no  pause  in  the  pursuit  of  human 
fame.  Tke  young  lawyer's  reputation  can  never 
end  in  an  anti-climax  like  this.  And  with  the  am- 
bition which  knows  not  how  to  rest,  and  in  the 
pride  of  his  Pharisee's  heart,  he  strikes  out  the 
idea  to  reverse  the  maxim  of  the  crucified  Leader 
of  the  hated  sect,  and  go  into  all  the  world  and 
suppress  the  gospel  in  every  creature.  He 
applies  to  the  high-priest  for  commission  and 
authority,  and,  breathing  out  threatenings  and 
slaughter,  the  man  who  is  going  to  live  for  Christ 
starts  out  on  his  Christless  mission  to  make 
havoc  of  the  Church. 

This  is  the  last  act  of  Paul's  first  life.  Let  us 
note  it  carefully.  We  are  on  the  bridge  which 
separates  Paul's  two  lives.  What  marks  the  tran- 
sition is  this :  up  to  this  time  his  life  has  been 
spent  in  public.  It  has  been  one  prolonged  whirl 
of  excitement  and  applause.  But  no  sooner  have 
the  gates  of  Jerusalem  closed  upon  him  than  Paul 
begins  to  think.  The  echoes  of  the  people's 
praises  have  died  away  one  by  one.  He  has 
gone  out  into  the  great  desert.      It  is   strangely 


*'TO   ME   TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST"     119 

silent  and  soothing,  and  the  lull  has  come  at  last 
upon  his  soul.     It  is  a  long  time,  perhaps,  smce 
he  has  had  time  to  think;  but  Saul  was  far  too 
crreat  a  man  to  live  long  an  unthinking  life.     His 
time  for  reflection  has  come.    And  as  he  wanders 
with  his  small  escort  along  the  banks  of  the  Jor- 
dan or  through  the  solitary  hills  of  Samaria,  his 
thoughts  are  busy  with  the  past.     And  if  Saul 
was  far  too  great  a  man  to  live  an  unthinking 
life  he  was  also  too  great  a  man  to  think  well  of 
his'life  when  he  did  think.     Each  new  day  as  he 
journeyed  away  from  the  scene  of  his  triumph, 
and  looked  back  upon  it  all  from  that  distance  — 
which  always  gives  the  true  perspective  to  man's 
life —  his  mind  must  have  filled  with  many  a  sad 
reproach.     And  as  he  lay  down  at  night  in  the 
quiet  wilderness   his  thoughts  must  often  have 
turned  on  the  true  quality  of  the  life  to  which  he 
was  sacrificing  his  talents  and  his  youth.     With 
his  quick  perception,  with  his  keen  trained  intel- 
lect, with  his  penetration,  he  must  have  seen  that 
after  all  this  life  was  a  mistake.     Minds  of  lesser 
calibre  in  the  applauding  world  which  he  had  left 
had  told  him  he  was  great.     Now,  in  his  calmer 
moments,  he  knew  he  was  not  great.     The  eter- 
nal heavens  stretching  above  him  pointed  to  an 
infinity  which  lay  behind  it  all ;   and  the  stars  and^ 
the  silence  spoke  to  him  of  God.     And  he  felt  that 
his   life  was  miserably  small.      Saul's   thoughts 
were  greater  than  Saul's  life.     How  he  had  been 
living  beneath  himself- how  he  had  wasted  the 


I20    "TO   ME  TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST" 

precious  years  of  his  youth  —  how  he  had  sold 
his  life  for  honour  and  reputation,  and  bartered 
the  talents  God  had  given  him  for  a  name,  he 
must  have  seen.  He  had  been  dazzled,  and  that 
was  all.  He  had  nothing  really  to  show  for  his 
life,  nothing  that  would  stand  the  test  of  solid 
thought.  It  was  all  done  for  himself.  He,  Saul 
of  Tarsus,  the  rising  man  of  his  time,  was  the 
centre  of  it  all.  "  After  all,"  perhaps  he  cried  in 
agony,  "  To  me  to  live  is  Saul,"  "  To  me  to  live 
is  Saul." 

Paul's  first  great  discovery,  as  we  have  seen  — 
and  it  is  the  discovery  which  precedes  every  true 
reformation  of  life  —  was  the  discovery  of  him- 
self. When  Paul  said,  "To  me  to  live  is  viy- 
selfy'  his  conversion  was  begun.  There  was  no 
retreat  then  for  a  man  like  him.  He  was  too 
great  to  have  such  a  little  centre  to  his  life;  or, 
rather,  he  felt  life  too  great  to  be  absorbed  with 
even  such  a  personality  as  his. 

But  the  next  element  in  the  case  was  not  so 
easily  discovered,  and  it  is  of  much  more  impor- 
tance than  the  first.  His  first  achievement  was 
only  to  discover  himself.  His  second  was  to 
discover  some  one  better  than  himself.  He 
wanted  a  new  centre  to  his  life  — ■  where  was  he 
to  find  W.  The  unseen  hand  which  painted  his 
own  portrait  in  its  true  colours  on  the  dark  back- 
ground of  his  mind  had  painted  every  other  life 
the  same.  The  high  priests  at  Jerusalem,  the 
members  of  the  Sanhedrim,  his  own  father  at 


"TO   ME  TO   LIVE  IS   CHRIST"      121 

Tarsus  —  all  the  men  he  knew  were  living  lives 
like  himself.  They  were  no  better  —  most  of 
them  worse.  Must  the  old  centre  of  Paul's  life 
remain  there  still.'*  Is  there  nothing  better  in 
all  the  world  than  himself.^ 

It  may  be  conjecture,  or  it  may  be  nearer 
truth,  that  while  such  questionings  passed 
through  the  mind  of  Paul,  there  came  into  his 
thoughts  as  he  journeyed  some  influences  from 
a  life  —  a  life  like  that  for  which  his  thoughts 
had  longed.  Paul's  best  known  journeys  are  his 
missionary  tours,  and  we  generally  associate  him 
in  our  thoughts  with  the  countries  of  Asia  and 
Italy  and  Greece.  But  this  time  his  way  leads 
through  the  holy  land.  He  has  entered  the  land 
of  Christ.  He  is  crossing  the  very  footsteps  of 
Jesus.  The  villages  along  his  route  are  fragrant 
still  with  what  Jesus  said  and  did.  They  are 
not  the  bitter  things  that  Saul  had  heard  before. 
Kind  words  are  repeated  to  him,  and  tender  acts 
which  Jesus  did  are  told.  The  peasants  by  the 
wayside  and  the  shepherds  on  the  hills  are  full 
of  stories  of  a  self-denying  life  which  used  to 
pass  that  way  a  year  or  two  ago,  but  now  will 
come  no  more.  And  the  mothers  at  the  cottage 
doors  remember  the  stranger  who  suffered  their 
little  children  to  come  unto  Him,  and  got  them 
to  repeat  to  Saul,  perhaps,  the  children's  bless- 
ing which  He  left  behind.  Perhaps,  in  passing 
through  Samaria,  the  traveller  met  a  woman  at 
a  well,  who  tells  her  strange  tale  for  the  thou- 


122     "TO    ME   TO    LIVE   IS   CHRIST" 

sandth  time,  of  a  weary  man  who  had  sat  there 
once  and  said  He  was  the  Christ.  And  Galilee 
and  Capernaum,  and  Bethsaida,  and  the  lake 
shore  at  Gennesaret,  are  full  of  memories  of  the 
one  true  life  which  surely  even  then  had  begun 
to  cast  a  sacred  influence  over  Paul.  At  all 
events,  there  seemed  a  strange  preparedness  in 
his  mind  for  the  meeting  on  the  Damascus  road, 
as  if  the  interview  with  Jesus  then  was  not  so 
much  the  first  of  his  friendship  as  the  natural 
outcome  of  something  that  had  gone  before. 
And  no  doubt  the  Spirit's  silent  working  had 
been  telling  on  his  mind  during  all  these  quiet 
days,  leading  up  his  thoughts  to  the  revelation 
that  was  to  come,  and  preparing  a  pathos  for  the 
memorable  question,  with  its  otherwise  unac- 
countable emphasis,  "  Why  persecutest  thou 
Mef'' 

What  went  on  between  Paul's  heart  and  God 
we  do  not  know.  We  do  not  know  how  deep 
repentance  ran,  nor  where,  nor  how,  the  justify- 
ing grace  came  down  from  heaven  to  his  soul. 
Whether  just  then  he  went  through  our  formula 
of  conversion  —  the  process  which  we  like  to 
watch  and  describe  in  technical  words  —  we  do 
not  know.  But  we  know  this  —  there  came  a 
difference  into  his  life.  His  life  was  changed. 
It  was  changed  at  its  most  radical  part.  He  had 
changed  centres.  During  the  process,  whatever 
it  was,  this  great  transfer  was  effected.  Paul 
deliberately  removed  the  old  centre   from   his 


"TO   ME   TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST  "    123 

life,  and  put  a  new  one  in  its  place.  Instead  of 
"to  me  to  live  is  Paul,"  it  was  now,  "to  me  to 
live  is  Christ." 

Of  course,  when  the  centre  of  Paul's  life  was 
changed,  he  had  to  take  his  whole  life  to  pieces 
and  build  it  up  again  on  a  totally  different  plan. 
This  change,  therefore,  is  not  a  mere  incident 
in  a  man's  life.  It  is  a  revolution,  a  revolution 
of  the  most  sweeping  sort.  There  never  was  a 
life  so  filled  up  with  anti-Christian  thoughts  and 
impulses  brought  so  completely  to  a  halt.  There 
never  was  such  a  total  eclipse  of  the  most  bril- 
liant worldly  prospects,  nor  such  an  abrupt  tran- 
sition from  a  career  of  dazzling  greatness  to 
humble  and  obscure  ignominy. 

Let  those  who  define  conversion  as  a  certain 
colourless  experience  supposed  to  go  on  in  the 
feelings,  blind  themselves  to  the  real  transition 
in  this  life  if  they  will.  Let  them  ask  them- 
selves if  there  ever  was  a  more  sweeping  revolu- 
tion in  any  life,  for  any  cause,  than  in  Paul's, 
when  he  abandoned  himself,  literally  abandoned 
himself,  and  subordinated  everything,  and  ever- 
more, to  this  one  supreme  passion  —  "  to  live  for 
Christ." 

The  stages  by  which  this  transcendent  stand- 
point is  to  be  reached  are  plainly  now  before  us. 
They  are,  the  discovery  of  self  and  the  discovery 
of  Christ.  These  two  discoveries  between  them 
exhaust  the  whole  of  life.  Till  these  discov- 
eries are  made,  no  man  truly  lives  till  both  are 


124    "TO    ME   TO   LIVE   IS  CHRIST" 

made  —  for  many  discover  themselves  who  have 
not  yet  discovered  Christ.  But  he  that  hath 
not  the  Son  hath  not  life.  Whatever  he  has, 
existence,  continuity,  he  has  not  life.  The  condi- 
tion of  living  at  all  is  to  live  for  Christ.  "  He 
that  hath  the  Son,"  and  he  alone,  and  no  one 
else,  "hath  life." 

Paul  takes  special  care  indeed  that  we  should 
fully  understand  the  altogether  different  quality 
of  the  two  lives  which  a  man  may  live.  In  his 
view,  the  first  life,  the  ordinary  life  of  men,  was 
altogether  a  mistake.  "  What  things  were  gain 
to  me,"  then,  he  tells  us,  "I  count  loss  for 
Christ."  That  brilliant  career  of  his  was  loss; 
that  mission,  noble  and  absorbing  once,  was 
mere  waste  energy  and  misspent  time.  And 
he  goes  further  still.  His  life  was  death.  It 
was  selfishness  pure  and  simple;  it  was  the  car- 
nal mind  pure  and  simple;  and  to  be  carnally 
minded  is  deatJi.  We  shall  understand  the  the- 
ology of  these  letters  better  if  we  think  of  the 
writer  as  a  man  escaping  death.  And  with  this 
horrible  background  to  his  life  we  can  see  the 
fuller  significance  of  his  words,  that  for  him  to 
live  was  Christ. 

Another  thing  is  also  made  plain  to  us. 

The  ceaseless  demand  of  the  New  Testament 
for  regeneration  is  also  plain  to  us  when  we  study 
the  doctrine  in  such  a  life  as  this.  It  was  not 
Saul  who  wrote  the  letters ;  it  was  a  different 
man  altogether  —  Paul.     It  was  one  who  was  in 


"TO   ME   TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST"     125 

a  totally  different  world  from  the  other.  If  it 
was  Saul,  he  must  have  been  born  again  before 
he  could  have  done  it.  Nothing  less  could  ac- 
count for  it.  His  interests  were  new,  his  stand- 
point, his  resources,  his  friendships.  All  old 
things,  in  fact,  had  passed  away.  All  things 
had  become  new.  In  a  word,  he  was  a  7iew 
creature.  The  pool,  polluted  and  stagnant,  had 
found  its  way  at  last  into  the  wide,  pure  sea  ;  the 
spirit,  tired  of  its  narrow  prison,  disgusted  with 
ambition  which  ended  with  itself,  reaches  out  to 
the  eternal  freedom,  and  finds  a  worthy  field  of 
exercise  in  the  great  enterprise  of  Christ. 

There  is  one  class,  finally,  to  whom  this  biog- 
raphy of  Paul  has  a  special  message.  The  people 
who  need  Paul's  change  most  are  not  those, 
always,  who  are  most  thought  to  need  it.  The 
really  difficult  cases  —  to  others,  but  especially 
to  themselves  — •  are  the  people  who  cannot  see 
really  that  their  life  could  be  much  better. 
There  are  thousands  who  do  not  see  exactly 
what  conversion  could  do  to  them.  And  their 
great  difficulty  in  changing  their  life  has  just 
been  this :  "  What,  after  all,  should  we  really 
have  to  change?  Our  lives  at  present  can 
scarcely  be  distinguished  from  the  real  Chris- 
tians around  us.  Had  we  been  irreligious,  or 
profane,  or  undutiful,  or  immoral,  conversion 
might  do  something  for  us;  but  we  belong  to 
the  class  who  feel  how  well  we  have  been  brought 


126     "TO   ME   TO   LIVE   IS    CHRIST" 

up,  how  much  our  interests  are  gathered  round 
reHgion,  and,  generally,  how  circumspect  and 
proper  our  entire  outward  life  has  been.  We 
do  not  really  see,  indeed,  what  change  conver- 
sion could  make."  Now  this  is  a  class  who 
seldom  get  any  sympathy,  and  none  deserve  it 
more.  Religious  people  and  religious  books  are 
always  saying  hard  things  of  the  "  religiously 
brought  up  "  —  bitterly  hard  and  undeserved 
things  —  until  they  almost  come  to  feel  as  if 
their  goodness  were  a  crime.  But  there  are 
secret  rendings  of  the  heart  within  these  ranks 
—  longings  after  God  perhaps  purer  than  any- 
where else  outside  God's  true  family.  And 
there  are  those  who  feel  the  difificulty  of  chang- 
ing in  surroundings  so  Christian-like  as  theirs; 
who  feel  it  so  keenly  that  their  despair  some- 
times leads  them  to  the  dark  thought  of  almost 
envying  the  prodigal  and  the  open  sinner,  who 
seem  to  have  more  chance  of  finding  the  king- 
dom than  they. 

Now  the  change  in  Paul's  life  is  exactly  the 
case  in  point  for  them.  Paul  himself  was  one  of 
these  characters  who  wonder  what  use  conversion 
could  ever  be  to  them.  He  was  one  of  the  "  re- 
ligiously brought  up."  Touching  the  law  he  was 
blameless.  There  was  no  stricter  man  with  his 
religion  in  all  Jerusalem  than  Saul;  no  man  took 
his  place  more  regularly  in  the  temple,  or  kept 
the  Sabbath  with  more  scrupulous  care.  Touch- 
ing the  law  he  was  blameless — just  the  man  you 


"TO   ME   TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST"    127 

would  have  said  who  never  ivoiild  be  changed, 
who  was  far  too  good  to  be  susceptible  of  a  change. 
But  this  is  the  man  —  not  far  from  the  kingdom 
of  God,  as  every  one  thought  him  to  be  —  who 
found  room  in  his  most  religious  heart  for  the 
most  sweeping  reform  that  ever  occurred  in  a 
life. 

Let  those  who  really  do  not  know  very  well 
what  religion  could  do  for  them  take  a  little  quiet 
thought  like  Paul,  Let  them  look  once  more, 
not  at  the  circumference,  but  at  the  centre  of 
their  life.  Let  them  ask  one  question  about  it : 
"/s  it  Christ?'^  There  is  no  middle  way  in 
religion — self  ox  CJirist.  The  quality  of  the 
selfishness  —  intellectual,  literary,  artistic  —  the 
fact  that  our  self's  centre  may  be  of  a  superior 
order  of  self,  does  nothing  to  destroy  this  grave 
distinction.  It  is  between  all  self  and  Christ. 
For  the  matter  of  that  no  centre  could  have  been 
more  disciplined  or  cultured  than  Paul's.  In  its 
place  it  was  truly  great  and  worthy,  but  its  place 
was  anywhere  else  than  where  Paul  had  it  for 
the  full  half  of  his  life.  This  question,  then, 
of  centres  is  the  vital  question.  "  To  me  to 
live  is"  —  what?  "To  me  to  live  is  myself  I" 
Suppose  that  it  is  so.  What  kind  of  an  end 
to  a  life  is  this  ?  How  much  nobler  a  centre 
our  life  is  worthy  of — our  one  life — which  is 
to  live  for  evermore ;  which  is  to  live  with  a 
great  centre  or  a  mean  one  —  meanly  or  greatly 
for  evermore !     Think  of  living  with  oneself  for 


128    ^'TO   ME   TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST" 

ever  and  for  ever.  Think  of  having  Hved,  living 
now,  and  evermore,  Hving  only  for  this.  Con- 
sider Him  who  endured  such  contradiction  of 
sinners  for  our  sake,  who  made  Himself  of  no 
reputation,  who  gave  up  form  and  comeliness ; 
who  humbled  Himself  and  emptied  Himself  for 
us.  Then  look  with  complacency  on  such  a  life 
if  we  can  — 

"  I  lived  for  myself,  I  thought  for  myself, 

For  myself,  and  none  beside. 
Just  as  if  Jesus  had  never  lived. 
As  if  he  had  never  died." 

2.  This  leads  naturally  to  the  other  point  — 
the  discovery  of  Christ.  And  here  once  more 
we  draw  abundant  encouragement  from  our 
biographyof  Paul.  And  it  brings  us  not  only  to 
a  hopeful  thought,  but  to  a  very  solemn  thought. 
We  have  all  in  some  way  made  the  discovery  of 
Christ — we  know  more  about  Christ  than  Paul 
did  when  he  became  a  Christian.  When  he  made 
Him  the  centre  of  his  life,  he  knew  less  of  Him 
perhaps  than  most  of  us.  It  is  a  startling  truth, 
at  all  events,  that  we  are  as  near  the  centre  of  life 
—  the  centre  of  the  universe  —  as  Paul.  We 
have  heard  of  Him  from  our  infancy ;  the  features 
of  His  life  are  as  familiar  as  our  own;  we  have 
no  hatred  to  Him  as  Paul  had  once.  And  if  the 
few  days'  quietness  in  the  Holy  Land,  which 
Paul  had  on  the  threshold  of  his  change,  were  in 
any  way  a  preparation  for  the  crisis  of  his  life, 
how  much  more  has  our  past  life  been  a  prepara- 


*'TO   ME   TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST"     129 

tion  for  a  change  in  ours !  We  call  Paul's  change 
a  sudden  conversion  —  we  do  not  know  how  sud- 
den it  was.  But  if  our  life  was  changed  to-day,  it 
would  be  no  sudden  conversion.  Our  whole  past 
has  been  leading  up  to  these  two  discoveries  of  life. 
Our  preparation,  so  far  as  knowledge  of  the  new 
centre  goes,  is  complete.  The  change,  so  far  as 
that  is  concerned,  might  happen  now.  We  have 
the  responsibility  of  being  so  near  eternal  life  as 
that. 

The  question  comes  to  be  then,  finally,  simply 
a  question  of  transfer.  To  me  to  live  is  myself, 
or  to  me  to  live  is  Christ.  To  live  for  Christ  is 
not  simply  the  sublime  doctrine  which  it  includes 
of  Christ  our  life.  It  is  not  so  much  Christ  our 
life,  but  rather  our  life  for  Christ. 

Shall  it  be,  then,  our  life  for  Christ?  "  To  me 
to  live  is  Christ."  Contrast  it  with  all  the  other 
objects  of  life ;  take  all  the  centres  out  of  all  the 
great  lives,  and  compare  them  one  by  one.  Can 
you  match  the  life-creed  of  Paul  —  "  to  me  to  live 
is  Christ"? 

" To  me  to  live  is  —  business"  " to  me  to  live 
is  —  pleasure,"  "  to  me  to  live  is  —  myself."  We 
can  all  tell  in  a  moment  what  our  religion  is  really 
worth.  "  To  me  to  live  is  "  —  what  ?  What  are 
we  living  for?  What  rises  naturally  to  our  heart 
when  we  press  it  with  a  test  like  this  :  "  To  me  to 
live  is"  —  what?  First  thoughts,  it  is  said,  are 
best  in  matters  of  conscience.  What  was  the 
first  thought  that  came  into  our  hearts  just  then? 
9 


I30    "TO   ME   TO   LIVE    IS   CHRIST" 

What  word  trembled  first  on  our  lip  just  now  — 
"to  me  to  live  is"  —  was  it  business,  was  it 
money,  was  it  ourself,  was  it  Christ? 

"  To  me  to  live  is  —  business,"  "  to  me  to  live 
is  pleasure,"  "  to  me  to  live  is  myself."  What 
kind  of  an  end  to  an  immortal  life  is  this?  How 
much  nobler  a  centre  our  life  is  worthy  of — our 
life,  our  one  precious  life,  which  is  to  live  for 
evermore ;  which  is  to  live  with  a  great  centre  or 
a  mean  one  —  meanly  or  greatly  for  evermore. 

The  time  will  come  when  we  shall  ask  ourselves 
why  we  ever  crushed  this  infinite  substance  of  our 
life  within  these  narrow  bounds,  and  centred  that 
which  lasts  for  ever  on  what  must  pass  away.  In 
the  perspective  of  eternity  all  lives  will  seem  poor, 
and  small,  and  lost,  and  self-condemned  beside  a 
life  for  Christ.  There  will  be  plenty  then  to 
gather  round  the  Cross.  But  who  will  do  it  now? 
Who  will  do  it  now?  There  are  plenty  men  to 
die  for  Him,  there  are  plenty  to  spend  eternity 
with  Christ ;  but  where  is  the  man  who  will  live  for 
Christ  ?  Death  and  Eternity  in  their  place.  Christ 
wants  lives.  No  fear  about  death  being  gain  if 
we  have  lived  for  Christ.  So  let  it  be.  "  To  me 
to  live  is  Christ."  There  is  but  one  alternative  — 
the  putting  on  of  Christ;  Paul's  alternative,  the 
discovery  of  Christ.  We  have  all  in  some  sense, 
indeed,  already  made  the  discovery  of  Christ.  We 
may  be  as  near  it  now  as  Paul  when  he  left  Jeru- 
salem. There  was  no  notice  given  that  he  was  to 
change  masters.    The  new  Master  simply  crossed 


"TO   ME  TO   LIVE   IS   CHRIST"     131 

his  path  one  day,  and  the  great  change  was  come. 
How  often  has  He  crossed  our  path?  We  know 
what  to  do  the  next  time  :  we  know  how  our  hfe 
can  be  made  worthy  and  great  —  how  only ;  we 
know  how  death  can  become  gain  —  how  only. 
Many,  indeed,  tell  us  death  will  be  gain.  Many 
long  for  life  to  be  done  that  they  may  rest,  as  they 
say,  in  the  quiet  grave.  Let  no  cheap  senti- 
mentalism  deceive  us.  Death  can  only  be  gain 
when  to  have  lived  was  Christ. 


NUMBER  VI 

Clairvoyance 

"  We  look  not  at  the  things  which  are  seen,  but  at  the 
things  which  are  not  seen :  for  the  things  which  are 
seen  are  temporal ;  but  the  things  which  are  not 
seen  are  eternal^  —  2  CoR.  iv.  18. 

^^  Everything  that  is  is  double.''^ 

Hermes  Trismegistus. 

"  T  OOK  not  at  the  things  which  are  seen." 
-1—^  How  can  we  look  not  at  the  things  which 
are  seen?  If  they  are  seen,  how  can  we  help 
looking  at  them?  "Look  at  the  things  which 
are  not  seen."  How  can  we  look  at  things  which 
are  not  seen?  Has  religion  some  magic  wishing- 
cap,  making  the  solid  world  invisible,  or  does  it 
supply  some  strange  clairvoyance  power,  seeing 
that  which  is  unseen? 

This  is  one  of  these  alluring  paradoxes  which 
all  great  books  delight  in,  which  baffle  thought 
while  courting  it,  but  which  disclose  to  whomever 
picks  the  lock  the  rarest  and  profoundest  truth. 
The  surface  meaning  of  a  paradox  is  either 
nonsense,  or  it  is  false.  In  this  case  it  is  false. 
One  would  gather,  at  first  sight,  that  we  had  here 
another  of  these  attacks  upon  the  world,  of 
which  the  Bible  is  supposed  to  be  so  fond.     It 


CLAIRVOYANCE  133 

reads  as  a  withering  contrast  between  the  things 
of  time  and  the  things  of  eternity  —  as  an  un- 
qualified disparagement  of  this  present  world. 
The  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal  —  no- 
where, not  worth  a  moment's  thought,  not  even 
to  be  looked  at. 

In  reality  this  is  neither  the  judgment  of  the 
Bible  nor  of  reason. 

There  are  four  reasons  why  we  should  look  at 
the  things  which  are  seen :  — 

1.  First,  because  God  made  them.  Anything 
that  God  makes  is  worth  looking  at.  We  live  in 
no  chance  world.  It  has  been  all  thought  out. 
Everywhere  work  has  been  spent  on  it  lavishly  — 
thought  and  work  —  loving  thought  and  exquisite 
work.  All  its  parts  together,  and  every  part 
separately,  are  stamped  with  skill,  beauty,  and 
purpose.  As  the  mere  work  of  a  Great  Master 
we  are  driven  to  look — deliberately  and  long  — 
at  the  things  which  are  seen. 

2.  But,  second,  God  made  me  to  look  at  them. 
He  who  made  light  made  the  eye.  It  is  a  gift  of 
the  Creator  on  purpose  that  we  may  look  at  the 
things  which  are  seen.  The  whole  mechanism 
of  man  is  made  with  reference  to  the  temporal 
world  —  the  eye  for  seeing  it,  the  ear  for  hearing 
it,  the  nerve  for  feeling  it,  the  muscle  for  moving 
about  on  it  and  getting  more  of  it.  He  acts  con- 
trary to  his  own  nature  who  harbours  even  a  sus- 
picion of  the  things  that  are  seen. 

3.  But  again,  thirdly,  God  has  not  merely  made 


134  CLAIRVOYANCE 

the  world,  but  He  has  made  it  conspicuous.  So 
far  from  lying  in  the  shade,  so  far  from  being 
constituted  to  escape  observation,  the  whole  tem- 
poral world  clamours  for  it.  Nature  is  never  and 
nowhere  silent.  If  you  are  apathetic,  if  you  will 
not  look  at  the  things  which  are  seen,  they  will 
summon  you.  The  bird  will  call  to  you  from  the 
tree-top,  the  sea  will  change  her  mood  for  you, 
the  flower  looks  up  appealingly  from  the  way- 
side, and  the  sun,  before  he  sets  with  irresistible 
colouring,  will  startle  you  into  attention.  The 
Creator  has  determined  that,  whether  He  be 
seen  or  no,  no  living  soul  shall  tread  His  earth 
without  being  spoken  to  by  these  works  of  His 
hands.  God  has  secured  that.  And  even  those 
things  which  have  no  speech  nor  language,  whose 
voice  is  not  heard,  have  their  appeal  going  out 
to  all  the  world,  and  their  word  to  the  end  of  the 
earth.  Had  God  feared  that  the  visible  world 
had  been  a  mere  temptation  to  us,  He  would 
have  made  it  less  conspicuous.  Certainly  He 
has  warned  us  not  to  love  it,  but  nowhere  not  to 
look  at  it. 

4.  The  last  reason,  fourthly,  is  the  greatest  of 
all.  Hitherto  we  have  been  simply  dealing  with 
facts.  Now  we  come  to  a  principle.  Look  at 
the  things  that  are  seen,  because  it  is  only  by 
looking  at  the  things  that  are  seen  that  we  can 
have  any  idea  of  the  things  that  are  unseen.  Our 
whole  conception  of  the  eternal  is  derived  from 
the  temporal. 


CLAIRVOYANCE  135 

Take  any  unseen  truth,  or  fact,  or  law.  The 
proposition  is  that  it  can  only  be  apprehended 
by  us  by  means  of  the  seen  and  temporal.  Take 
the  word  eternal  itself.  What  do  we  know  of 
eternity  ?  Nothing  that  we  have  not,  learned  from 
the  temporal.  When  we  try  to  realise  that  word 
there  rises  up  before  us  the  spaceless  sea.  We 
glide  swiftly  over  it  day  after  day,  but  the  illim- 
itable waste  recedes  before  us,  knowing  no  end. 
On  and  on,  week  and  month,  and  there  stretches 
the  same  horizon  vague  and  infinite,  the  far-off 
circle  we  can  never  reach.  We  stop.  We  are 
far  enough.     This  is  eternity ! 

In  reality  this  is  not  eternity ;  it  is  mere  water, 
the  temporal,  liquid  and  tangible.  But  by  look- 
ing at  this  thing  which  is  seen  we  have  beheld 
the  unseen.  Here  is  a  river.  It  is  also  water. 
But  its  different  shape  mirrors  a  different  truth. 
As  we  look,  the  opposite  of  eternity  rises  up 
before  us.  There  is  Time,  swift  and  silent;  or 
Life,  fleeting  and  irrevocable.  So  one  might  run 
over  all  the  material  of  his  thoughts,  all  the 
groundwork  of  his  ideas,  and  trace  them  back  to 
things  that  are  temporal.  They  are  really  mate- 
rial, made  up  of  matter,  and  in  order  to  think  at 
all,  one  must  first  of  all  see. 

Nothing  could  illustrate  this  better,  perhaps, 
than  the  literary  form  of  our  English  Bible. 
Leaving  out  for  the  present  the  language  of 
symbol  and  illustration  which  Christ  spoke,  there 
is  no  great  eternal  truth  that  is  not  borne  to  us 


136  CLAIRVOYANCE 

upon  some  material  image.  Look,  for  instance, 
at  its  teaching  about  human  life.  To  describe 
that  it  does  not  even  use  the  words  derived  from 
the  temporal  world.  It  brings  us  face  to  face 
with  the  temporal  world,  and  lets  us  abstract  them 
for  ourselves.  It  never  uses  the  word  ^' fleetiitg'* 
or  ^^  transitory y  It  says  life  is  a  vapour  that 
appeareth  for  a  little  and  vanisheth  away.  It 
likens  it  to  a  swift  post,  a  swift  ship,  a  tale  that  is 
told. 

It  never  uses  the  word  "  irrevocable"  It 
speaks  of  water  spilt  on  the  ground  that  cannot 
be  gathered  up  again  —  a  thread  cut  by  the 
weaver.  Nor  does  it  tell  us  that  life  is  "  evanes- 
cent." It  suggests  evanescent  things  —  a  dream, 
a  sleep,  a  shadow,  a  shepherd's  tent  removed. 
And  even  to  convey  the  simpler  truth  that  life  is 
short,  we  find  only  references  to  short  things  that 
are  seen  —  a  handbreadth,  a  pilgrimage,  a  flower, 
a  weaver's  shuttle.  The  Bible  in  these  instances 
is  not  trying  to  be  poetical :  it  is  simply  trying  to 
be  true.  And  it  distinctly,  unconsciously  recog- 
nises the  fact  that  truth  can  only  be  borne  into 
the  soul  through  the  medium  of  things.  We 
must  refuse  to  believe,  therefore,  that  we  are  not 
to  look  at  the  things  which  are  seen.  It  is  a 
necessity;  for  the  temporal  is  the  husk  and 
framework  of  the  eternal.  And  the  things  which 
are  not  seen  are  made  of  the  things  which  do 
appear.  "  All  visible  things,"  said  Carlyle,  "  are 
emblems.      What  thou  seest  is  not  there  on  its 


CLAIRVOYANCE  137 

own  account;  strictly  speaking,  is  not  there  at 
all.  Matter  exists  only  spiritually,  and  to  repre- 
sent some  idea  and  body  it  forth"  {Sartor 
Rcsartus,  p.  49).  And  so  John  Ruskin :  —  "  The 
more  I  think  of  it  I  find  this  conclusion  more 
impressed  upon  me  —  that  the  greatest  thing  a 
human  soul  ever  does  in  this  world  is  to  see 
something,  and  tell  what  it  saw  in  a  plain  way. 
Hundreds  of  people  can  talk  for  one  who  can 
think ;  but  thousands  can  think  for  one  who  can 
see.  To  see  clearly  is  poetry,  prophecy,  and 
religion  —  all  in  one." 

II.  From  this  point  we  can  now  go  on  from 
the  negative  of  the  paradox  to  the  second  and 
positive  term  — "  Look  at  the  things  which  are 
not  seen."  We  now  understand  how  to  do  this. 
Where  is  the  eternal?  Where  are  the  unseen 
things,  that  we  may  look  at  them?  And  the 
answer  is  —  in  the  temporal.  Look  then  at  the 
temporal,  but  do  not  pause  there.  You  must 
penetrate  it.  Go  through  it,  and  see  its  shadow, 
its  spiritual  shadow,  on  the  further  side.  Look 
upon  this  shadow  long  and  earnestly,  till  that 
which  you  look  through  becomes  the  shadow, 
and  the  shadow  merges  into  the  reality.  Look 
through  till  the  thing  you  look  through  becomes 
dim,  then  transparent,  and  then  invisible,  and 
the  unseen  beyond  grows  into  form  and  strength. 
For,  truly,  the  first  thing  seen  is  the  shadow, 
the  thing  on  the  other  side  the  reality.  The 
thing  you  see  is  only  a  solid,  and  men  mistake 


138  CLAIRVOYANCE 

solidity  for  reality.  But  that  alone  is  the  reality 
—  the  eternal  which  lies  behind.  Look,  then, 
not  at  the  things  which  are  seen,  but  look  through 
them  to  the  things  that  are  unseen. 

The  great  lesson  which  emerges  from  all  this  is 
as  to  the  religious  use  of  the  temporal  world. 
Heaven  lies  behind  earth.  We  see  that  this  earth 
is  not  merely  a  place  to  live  in,  but  to  see  in. 
We  are  to  pass  through  it  as  clairvoyants,  hold- 
ing the  whole  temporal  world  as  a  vast  trans- 
parency, through  which  the  eternal  shines. 

Let  us  now  apply  this  principle  briefly  to  daily 
life.  To  most  of  us,  the  most  practical  division 
of  life  is  threefold :  the  Working  life,  the  Home 
life,  and  the  Religious  life.  What  do  these 
yield  us  of  the  eternal,  and  how? 

I.  The  Working  Life.  To  most  men,  work  is 
just  work  —  manual  work,  professional  work, 
office  work,  household  work,  public  work,  intel- 
lectual work.  A  yellow  primrose  is  just  a 
yellow  primrose ;  a  ledger  is  a  ledger ;  a  lexicon 
is  a  lexicon.  To  a  worker,  Christian  business 
man,  with  this  mind,  so  far  as  spiritual  uses  are 
concerned,  therefore,  work  is  vanity  —  an  un- 
accountable squandering  of  precious  time.  He 
must  earn  his  success  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow ; 
that  is  all  he  knows  about  it.  It  is  a  curse,  lying 
from  the  beginning  upon  man  as  man.  So,  six 
days  of  it  each  week,  he  bends  his  neck  to  it 
doggedly ;  the  seventh  God  allows  him  to  think 
about  the  unseen  and  eternal. 


CLAIRVOYANCE  139 

Now  God  would  never  unspiritualise  three- 
fourths  of  man's  active  Hfe  by  work,  if  work  were 
work,  and  nothing  more. 

A  second  workman  sees  a  little  further.  His 
work  is  not  a  curse  exactly;  it  is  his  appointed 
life,  his  destiny.  It  is  God's  will  for  him,  and  he 
must  go  through  with  it.  No  doubt  its  trials 
are  good  for  him;  at  all  events,  God  has  ap- 
pointed him  this  sphere,  and  he  must  accept 
it  with  Christian  resignation. 

It  is  a  poor  compliment  to  the  Divine  arrange- 
ments if  they  are  simply  to  be  acquiesced  in. 
The  all-wise  God  surely  intends  some  higher 
outcome  from  three-fourths  of  life  than  ailment 
and  resignation. 

To  the  spiritual  man,  next,  there  lies  behind 
this  temporal  a  something  which  explains  all. 
He  sees  more  to  come  out  of  it  than  the  year's 
income,  or  the  employment  of  his  allotted  time, 
or  the  benefiting  of  his  species.  If  violins  were 
to  be  the  only  product,  there  is  no  reason  why 
Stradivarius  should  spend  his  life  in  making 
them.  But  work  is  an  incarnation  of  the  un- 
seen. In  this  loom  man's  soul  is  made.  There 
is  a  subtle  machinery  behind  it  all,  working 
while  he  is  working,  making  or  unmaking  the 
unseen  in  him.  Integrity,  thoroughness,  hon- 
esty, accuracy,  conscientiousness,  faithfulness, 
patience  —  these  unseen  things  which  complete 
a  soul  are  woven  into  it  in  work.  Apart  from 
work,  these  things  are  not.     As  the  conductor 


I40  CLAIRVOYANCE 

leads  into  our  nerves  the  invisible  electric  force, 
so  work  conducts  into  our  spirit  all  high  forces  of 
character,  all  essential  qualities  of  life,  truth  in 
the  inward  parts.  Ledgers  and  lexicons,  business 
letters,  domestic  duties,  striking  of  bargains, 
writing  of  examinations,  handling  of  tools —  these 
are  the  conductors  of  the  eternal.  So  much  the 
conductors  of  the  eternal,  that  without  them  there 
is  no  eternal.  No  man  dreams  integrity,  accuracy, 
and  so  on.  He  cannot  learn  them  by  reading 
about  them.  These  things  require  their  wire  as 
much  as  electricity.  The  spiritual  fluids  and 
the  electric  fluids  are  under  the  same  law;  and 
messages  of  grace  come  along  the  lines  of  honest 
work  to  the  soul  like  the  invisible  message  along 
the  telegraph  wires.  Patience,  spiritually,  will 
travel  along  a  wire  as  really  as  electricity. 

A  workshop,  therefore,  or  an  office,  or  a  school 
of  learning,  is  a  gigantic  conductor.  An  office 
is  not  a  place  for  making  money  —  it  is  a  place 
for  making  character.  A  workshop  is  not  a 
place  for  making  machinery  —  it  is  a  place  for 
making  men:  not  for  turning  wood,  for  fitting 
engines,  for  founding  cylinders.  To  God's  eye, 
it  is  a  place  for  founding  character;  it  is  a  place 
for  fitting  in  the  virtues  to  one's  life,  for  turn- 
ing out  honest,  modest-tempered  God-fearing 
men.  A  school  of  learning  is  not  so  much  a 
place  for  making  scholars,  as  a  place  for  making 
souls,  and  he  who  would  ripen  and  perfect  the 
eternal  element  in  his  being  will  do  so  by  at- 


CLAIRVOYANCE  141 

tending  to  the  religious  uses  of  his  daily  task, 
recognising  the  unseen  in  its  seen,  so  turning 
three-fourths  of  each  day's  life  into  an  ever- 
acting  means  of  grace. 

We  say  some  kinds  of  work  are  immoral.  A 
man  who  is  turning  out  careless,  imperfect  work, 
is  turning  out  a  careless,  imperfect  character  for 
himself.  He  is  touching  deceit  every  moment ; 
and  this  unseen  thing  rises  up  from  his  work 
like  a  subtle  essence,  and  enters  and  poisons  his 
soul.  We  say  piece-work  is  immoral  —  it  makes 
a  man  only  a  piece  of  a  man,  shuts  him  out  from 
variety,  and  originality,  and  adaptation,  narrow- 
ing and  belittling  his  soul.  But  we  forget  the 
counter-truth,  that  honest  and  good  work  make 
honesty  and  goodness,  integrity  and  thorough- 
ness —  nay,  that  these  alone  make  them.  And 
that  he  who  would  ripen  and  perfect  his  soul 
must  attend  to  the  religious  uses  of  his  daily 
work,  —  seeing  the  unseen  in  its  seen,  — heeding 
it,  not  with  a  dry  punctiliousness,  but  lovingly, 
so  turning  the  active  life  of  each  working  day 
into  means  of  grace,  recognising  its  dignity,  not 
as  a  mere  making  of  money,  but  as  an  elaborate 
means  of  grace,  occupying  three-fourths  of  life. 

2.  The  Farnily  Life.  Next,  life  is  so  ordered 
that  another  large  part  of  it  is  spent  in  the 
family.  This  also,  therefore,  has  its  part  to 
play  in  the  completing  of  the  soul.  The  work- 
ing life  could  never  teach  a  man  all  the  lessons 
of  the  unseen.     A  whole  set  of  additional  mes- 


342  CLAIRVOYANCE 

sages  from  the  eternal  have  to  be  conducted  into 
his  soul  at  home.  This  is  why  it  is  not  good 
for  a  man  to  be  alone.  A  lonely  man  is  insu- 
lated from  the  eternal  —  inaccessible  to  the 
subtle  currents  which  ought  to  be  flowing  hourly 
into  his  soul. 

This,  too,  is  a  higher  source  of  spirituality 
than  work.  It  is  here  that  life  dawns,  and  the 
first  mould  is  given  to  the  plastic  substance  — 
Home  is  the  cradle  of  Eternity. 

It  has  been  secured,  therefore,  that  the  first 
laws  stamped  there,  the  first  lines  laid  down,  the 
permanent  way  for  the  future  soul,  should  be  at 
once  the  lines  of  the  eternal.  Why  do  all  men 
say  that  the  family  is  a  divine  institution.?  Be- 
cause God  instituted  it.'  But  what  guided  Him 
in  constituting  it  as  it  is.?  Eternity.  Home 
is  a  preliminary  heaven.  Its  arrangements  are 
purely  the  arrangements  of  Heaven.  Heaven 
is  a  father  with  his  children.  The  parts  we 
shall  play  in  that  great  home  are  just  the  parts 
we  have  learned  in  the  family  here.  We  shall 
go  through  the  same  life  there  —  only  without  the 
matter.  This  matter  is  a  mere  temporary  quality 
to  practise  the  eternal  on  —  as  wooden  balls  are 
hung  up  in  a  schoolroom  to  teach  the  children 
numbers  till  they  can  think  them  for  themselves. 

When  a  parent  wishes  to  teach  his  child  form 
and  harmony,  the  properties  of  matter,  beauty, 
and  symmetry  —  all  these  unseen  things  —  what 
does  he  do  but  give  his  child  things  that  are 


CLAIRVOYANCE  143 

seen,  through  which  he  can  see  them?  He  gives 
him  a  box  of  matter,  bricks  of  wood,  as  play- 
things, and  the  child,  in  forming  and  transform- 
ing these,  in  building  with  them  lines  and 
squares,  arches  and  pillars,  has  borne  into  his 
soul  regularity  and  stability,  form  and  symmetry. 
So  God  with  us.  The  material  universe  is  a 
mere  box  of  bricks.  We  exercise  our  growing 
minds  upon  it  for  a  space,  till  in  the  hereafter 
we  become  men,  and  childish  things  are  put 
away.  The  temporal  is  but  the  scaffolding  of 
the  eternal ;  and  when  the  last  immaterial  souls 
have  climbed  through  this  material  to  God,  the 
scaffolding  shall  be  taken  down,  and  the  earth 
dissolved  with  fervent  heat  —  not  because  it  is 
wrong,  but  because  its  work  is  done. 

The  mind  of  Christ  is  to  be  learned  in  the 
family.  Strength  of  character  may  be  acquired 
at  work,  but  beauty  of  character  is  learned  at 
home.  There  the  affections  are  trained  —  that 
love  especially  which  is  to  abide  when  tongues 
have  ceased  and  knowledge  fails.  There  the 
gentle  life  reaches  us,  the  true  heaven  life.  In  one 
word,  the  family  circle  is  the  supreme  conductor 
of  Christianity.  Tenderness,  humbleness,  cour- 
tesy; self-forgetfulness,  faith,  sympathy — these 
ornaments  of  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit  are  learned 
at  the  fireside,  round  the  table,  in  commonplace 
houses,  in  city  streets.  We  are  each  of  us  daily 
embodying  these  principles  in  our  soul,  or  tram- 
pling them  out  of  it,  in  the  ordinary  intercourse 


144  CLAIRVOYANCE 

of  life.  As  actors  in  a  charade,  each  member  of 
the  house  each  day,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
acts  a  word.  The  character  is  the  seen,  the  word 
the  unseen,  and  whether  he  thinks  of  the  word  at 
night  or  not,  the  souls  of  all  around  have  guessed 
it  silently ;  and  when  the  material  mask  and  cos- 
tume is  put  away,  and  the  circumstance  of  that 
day's  life  long  years  forgotten,  that  word  of  eter- 
nity lives  on  to  make  or  mar  the  player,  and  all 
the  players  with  him,  in  that  day's  game  of  life. 

To  waken  a  man  to  all  that  is  involved  in  each 
day's  life,  in  even  its  insignificant  circumstance 
and  casual  word  and  look,  surely  you  have  but 
to  tell  him  all  this  —  that  in  these  temporals  lie 
eternals ;  that  in  life,  not  in  church,  lies  religion ; 
that  all  that  is  done  or  undone,  said  or  unsaid, 
of  right  or  wrong,  have  their  part,  by  an  unalter- 
able law,  in  the  eternal  life  of  all. 

3.  We  now  come  to  Religion.  And  we  shall 
see  further  how  God  has  put  even  that  for  us  into 
the  temporal.  Reflect  for  a  moment  upon  the 
teaching  of  Christ.  All  that  He  had  to  say  of  the 
eternal  He  put  up  in  images  of  the  temporal  world. 
What  are  all  His  parables,  His  allusions  to  nature. 
His  illustrations  from  real  life.  His  metaphors  and 
similes,  but  disclosures  to  our  blind  eyes  of  the 
unseen  in  the  seen?  In  reality,  the  eternal  is 
never  nearer  us  than  in  a  material  image.  Reason 
cannot  bring  religion  near  us,  only  things  can.  So 
Christ  never  demonstrated  anything.  He  did  not 
appeal  to  the  reasoning  power  in  man,  but  to  the 


CLAIRVOYANCE  145 

seeing  power  —  that  power  of  imagination  which 
deals  with  images  of  things. 

That  is  the  key  to  all  Christ's  teaching  —  that 
He  spoke  not  to  the  reason  but  to  the  imagina- 
tion. Incessantly  He  held  up  t/mtgs  before  our 
eyes  —  things  which  in  a  few  days  or  years  would 
moulder  into  dust — and  told  us  to  look  there  at 
the  eternal.  He  held  up  bread.  "  I  am  bread," 
He  said.  And  if  you  think  over  that  for  a  lifetime, 
you  will  never  get  nearer  to  the  truth  than  through 
that  thing  bread.  That  temporal  is  so  perfect  an 
image  of  the  eternal,  that  no  reading,  or  thinking, 
or  sermonising,  can  get  us  closer  to  Christ. 

Hence  the  triumphant  way  in  which  He  ran- 
sacked the  temporal  world,  and  marked  off  for  us 
—  what  we,  with  our  false  views  of  spirituality, 
had  never  dared  —  marked  off  for  us  all  its  com- 
mon and  familiar  things  as  mirrors  of  the  eternal. 
So  light,  life ;  vine,  wine ;  bread,  water,  physi- 
cian, shepherd,  and  a  hundred  others,  have  all 
become  transformed  with  a  light  from  the  other 
world.  Observe,  Christ  does  not  say  He  is 
like  these  things.  He  is  these  things.  Look 
through  these  things,  right  through,  and  you  will 
see  Him,  We  disappoint  our  souls  continually 
in  trying,  by  some  other  way  than  through  these 
homely  temporals,  to  learn  the  spiritual  life. 

It  is  the  danger  of  those  who  pursue  the  intel- 
lectual life  as  a  specialty  to  miss  this  tender  and 
gracious  influence.  The  student  of  the  family, 
by  a  generous  though  perilous  homage  paid  to 
10 


146  CLAIRVOYANCE 

learning,  is  allowed  to  be  an  exception  in  the 
family  life.  He  dwells  apart,  goes  his  own  way, 
lives  his  own  life ;  and  unconsciously,  and  to  his 
pain,  he  finds  himself,  perhaps,  gradually  look- 
ing down  on  its  homelier  tasks  and  less  transcen- 
dent interests.  In  society,  it  is  for  the  scholar 
we  make  allowances ;  but  the  eccentricities  we 
condone  on  account  of  their  high  compensations 
often  mark  an  arrested  development  of  what  is 
really  higher.  And  there  is  nothing  so  much  to 
fear  in  oneself,  and  to  check  with  more  resolute 
will,  than  the  unconscious  tendency  in  all  who 
pursue  culture  to  get  out  of  step  with  humanity, 
and  be  not  at  home  at  home. 

A  very  remarkable  instance  of  Christ's  use  of 
this  principle  is  the  Sacraments.  His  design 
there  was  to  perpetuate,  in  the  most  luminous 
and  arresting  way,  the  two  grandest  facts  of  the 
spiritual  world.  How  did  He  proceed?  He 
made  them  visible.  He  associated  these  facts 
with  the  two  commonest  things  in  the  world  — 
water  and  bread  and  wine  —  the  every-day  diet 
at  every  peasant's  board.  By  these  sacraments, 
the  souls  of  men  are  tied  down  at  the  most  sacred 
moments  of  life  to  the  homeliest  temporal  things ; 
so  that  the  highest  spirituality,  by  Christ's  own 
showing,  comes  to  God's  children  through  lowly 
forms  of  the  material  world.  Transcendentalism 
in  religion  is  a  real  mistake.  True  spirituality  is 
to  see  the  divinity  in  common  things. 

But,  yet  again,  there  is  a  more  wonderful  ex- 


CLAIRVOYANCE  147 

hibition  of  this  law  than  the  Sacraments.  God 
furnished  the  world  with  a  temporal  thing  for 
every  eternal  thing  save  one.  Every  eternal 
truth  had  its  material  image  in  the  world  —  every 
eternal  law  had  its  working-model  among  the 
laws  of  nature.  But  there  was  one  thing  want- 
ing. There  was  no  temporal  for  the  eternal  God 
Himself.  And  man  missed  it.  He  wished  to  see 
even  this  unseen  in  something  seen.  In  the  sea, 
he  saw  eternity;  in  space,  infinity;  in  the  hills, 
sublimity ;  in  the  family,  love ;  in  the  state,  law. 
But  there  was  no  image  of  God.  One  speaks  of 
what  follows  with  bated  breath.  God  gave  it ! 
God  actually  gave  it !  God  made  a  seen  image 
of  Himself — not  a  vision,  not  a  metaphor — an 
express  image  of  His  person,  .  He  laid  aside  His 
invisibility,  He  clothed  Himself  \\'\'Cci  the  temporal, 
He  took  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us.  The  incarna- 
tion was  the  eternal  become  temporal  for  a  little 
time,  that  we  might  look  at  it. 

It  was  our  only  way  of  beholding  it,  for  we 
can  only  see  the  unseen  in  the  seen.  The  word 
"God"  conveyed  no  meaning;  there  was  no 
seen  thing  to  correspond  to  that  word,  and  no 
word  is  intelligible  till  there  is  an  image  for  it. 
So  God  gave  religion  its  new  word  in  the  intelli- 
gible form  —  a  word  in  flesh  —  that,  henceforth, 
all  men  might  behold  God's  glory,  not  in  itself, 
for  that  is  impossible,  but  in  the  face  of  Jesus. 
This  is  the  crowning  proof  of  the  religious  use  of 
the  temporal  world. 


148  CLAIRVOYANCE 

Such,  then,  are  some  of  the  eternal  uses  of  the 
temporal  world. 

Three  classes  of  men,  finally,  have  taken  up 
their  position  with  reference  to  this  principle 
within  recent  years. 

One  will  not  look  at  the  unseen  at  all  —  the 
materialist.  He  is  utterly  blind  to  the  eternal. 
The  second  is  utterly  blind  to  the  temporal  — 
the  mystic.  He  does  not  look  for  the  unseen  in 
the  seen,  but  apart  from  the  seen.  He  works, 
or  tries  to  work,  by  direct  vision.  The  third  is 
neither  blind  to  the  unseen  or  the  seen,  but  short- 
sighted to  both.  The  Ritualist  selects  some  half- 
dozen  things  from  the  temporal  world,  and  tries 
to  see  the  unseen  in  them.  As  if  there  were  only 
some  half-dozen  things  —  crosses  and  vestments, 
music  and  stained  glass  —  through  which  the 
eternal  shone !  The  whole  world  is  a  ritual  — 
that  is  the  answer.  If  a  man  means  to  evade 
God,  let  him  look  for  Him  in  some  half-dozen 
forms;  he  will  evade  Him,  he  will  not  see  Him 
anywhere  else.  But  let  him  who  wishes  to  get 
near  God,  and  be  with  God  always,  move  in  a 
religious  atmosphere  always;  let  him  take  up  his 
position  beside  this  truth.  VVorldliness  has  been 
defined  as  a  looking  at  the  things  that  are  seen, 
but  only  closely  enough  to  see  tJieir  market  value. 
Spirituality  is  that  further  look  which  sees  their 
eternal  value,  which  realises  that 

"  The  earth  is  full  of  heaven, 
And  every  common  bush  afire  with  God." 


NUMBER  VII 


The   Three 
Facts   of  Sin 


T 


"  WJio  forgiveth  all  thine  iniquities ; 
Who  healeth  all  thy  diseases; 
Who  redeemeth  thy  life  from  destruction^ 

Ps.  ciii.  3,  4. 

HERE  is  one  theological  word  which  has 
_        found  its  way  lately  into   nearly  all  the 
newer  and  finer  literature  of  our  country.     It  is 
not  only  one  of  the  words  of  the  literary  world  at 
present,  it  is   perhaps  the  word.     Its  reality,  its 
certain    influence,    its    universality,  have   at   last 
been  recognised,  and  in  spite  of  its  theological 
name  have  forced  it  into  a  place  which  nothmg 
but  its  felt  relation  to  the  wider  theology  of  hu- 
man life  could  ever  have  earned  for  a  religious 
word.    That  word,  it  need  scarcely  be  said,  is  Sin. 
Even  in  the  lighter  literature  of  our  country, 
and  this  is  altogether  remarkable,  the  ruling  word 
just  now  is  sin.     Years  ago  it  was  the  gay  term 
Chivalry  which  held  the  foreground  m  poem  and 
ballad  and  song.     Later  still,  the  word  which  held 
court,  in  novel  and  romance,  was  Love.     But  now 
a  deeper  word  heads  the  chapters  and  begins  the 
cantos.     A  more  exciting  thing  than  chivalry  is 
descried   in  the  arena,  and   love    itself  fades  in 


ISO      THE   THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN 

interest  before  this  small  word,  which  has  wan- 
dered out  of  theology,  and  changed  the  face  of 
literature,  and  made  many  a  new  book  preach. 

It  is  not  for  religion  to  complain  that  her  vocabu- 
lary is  being  borrowed  by  the  world.  There  may 
be  pulpits  where  there  are  not  churches ;  and  it 
is  a  valuable  discovery  for  religion  that  the  world 
has  not  only  a  mind  to  be  amused  but  a  con- 
science to  be  satisfied. 

But  religion  has  one  duty  in  the  matter  — 
when  her  words  are  borrowed,  to  see  that  they 
are  borrowed  whole.  Truth  which  is  to  pass  into 
such  common  circulation  must  not  be  mutilated 
truth;  it  must  be  strong,  wringing,  decided, 
whole;  it  must  be  standard  truth;  in  a  word,  it 
must  be  Bible  truth. 

Now  the  Bible  truth  about  this  word  is  in  itself 
interesting  and  very  striking.  In  David  espe- 
cially, where  the  delineations  are  most  perfect 
and  masterful,  the  reiteration  and  classification 
of  the  great  facts  and  varieties  of  sin  form  one  of 
the  most  instructive  and  impressive  features  of 
the  sacred  writings.  The  Psalms  will  ever  be  the 
standard  work  on  Sin  —  the  most  ample  analysis 
of  its  nature,  its  effects,  its  shades  of  difference, 
and  its  cure. 

And  yet,  though  it  is  such  a  common  thing,  I 
daresay  many  of  us,  perhaps,  do  not  know  any- 
thing about  it.  Somehow,  it  is  just  the  common 
things  we  are  apt  not  to  think  about.  Take  the 
commonest   of  all   things  —  air.     What   do   we 


THE   THREE  FACTS   OF   SIN       151 

know  about  it?  What  do  we  know  about  water? 
—  that  great  mysterious  sea,  on  which  some  of 
you  spend  your  Hves,  which  moans  all  the  long 
winter  at  your  very  doors.  Sin  is  a  commoner 
thing  than  them  all;  deeper  than  the  sea,  more 
subtle  than  the  air;  mysterious  indeed,  moaning 
in  all  our  lives,  through  all  the  winter  and  sum- 
mer of  our  past;  that  shall  last,  in  the  undying 
soul  of  man,  when  there  shall  be  no  more  sea. 
To  say  the  least  of  it,  it  is  most  unreasonable 
that  a  man  should  live  in  sin  all  his  life  without 
knowing  in  some  measure  what  he  is  about. 

And  as  regards  the  higher  bearings  of  the 
case,  it  is  clear  that  without  the  fullest  informa- 
tion about  sin  no  man  can  ever  have  the  fullest 
information  about  himself,  which  he  ought  to 
have;  and  what  is  of  more  importance,  without 
understanding  sin  no  man  can  ever  understand 
God.  Even  the  Christian  who  has  only  the 
ordinary  notions  of  sin  in  the  general,  can  neither 
be  making  very  much  of  himself  or  of  his  the- 
ology, for  as  a  general  rule,  a  man's  experience 
of  religion  and  of  grace  is  in  pretty  exact  pro- 
portion to  his  experience  of  sin. 

No  doubt,  the  intimate  knowledge  of  them- 
selves which  the  Old  Testament  writers  had,  had 
everything  to  do  with  their  intimate  knowledge 
of  God.  David,  for  instance,  who  had  the  deepest 
knowledge  of  God,  had  also  the  deepest  knowl- 
edge of  his  own  heart;  and  if  there  is  one  thing 
in  the  writings  he  has  left  us  more  conspicuous 


152       THE  THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN 

than  another,  it  is  the  ceaseless  reiteration  of 
the  outstanding  facts  of  Sin  —  the  cause,  the 
effects,  the  shades  of  difference,  and  the  cure  of 
Sin. 

In  the  clause  which  forms  our  text  to-day, 
David  has  given  us  in  a  nutshell  the  whole  of 
the  main  facts  of  Sin.  And  for  any  one  who 
wishes  to  become  acquainted  with  the  great 
pivots  on  which  all  human  life  turns,  and  on 
which  his  own  life  turns;  for  any  one  who 
wishes  to  understand  the  working  of  God's  grace; 
for  any  one  who  wishes  to  examine  himself  on  the 
other  great  fact  of  human  sin ;  there  is  no  more 
admirable  summary  than  these  words : 

"Who  forgiveth  all  thine  iniquities;  Who 
healeth  all  thy  diseases;  Who  redeemeth  thy 
life  from  destruction." 

These  facts  of  sin,  which  it  is  necessary  for  us 
to  know,  may  be  said  to  be  three  in  number : 

1.  The  Guilt  of  Sin. 

2.  The  Stain  of  Sin. 

3.  The  Power  of  Sin. 

And  these  three  correspond  roughly  with  the 
natural  division  of  the  text : 

1.  Who  forgiveth  all  thine  iniquities  =  the 
Guilt  of  Sin. 

2.  Who  healeth  all  thy  diseases  =  the  Stain 
of  Sin. 

3.  Who  redeemeth  thy  life  from  destruction  = 
the  Power  of  Sin. 

The  best  fact  to  start  with  will  perhaps  be 


THE   THREE    FACTS   OF   SIN       153 

the  last  of  these;  and  for  this  reason  the  word 
Life  is  in  it.  "Who  redeemeth  Xhy  Life  from 
destruction." 

We  have  all  a  personal  interest  in  anything 
that  concerns  life.  We  can  understand  things 
—  even  things  in  theology  —  if  they  will  only 
bear  upon  our  life.  And  to  anything  which  in 
any  way  comes  home  to  life,  in  influencing  it, 
or  bettering  it,  or  telling  upon  it  in  any  way 
whatever,  we  are  always  ready,  for  our  life's 
sake,  to  give  a  patient  hearing. 

I.  We  feel  prepared  to  take  kindly  to  almost 
any  doctrine  if  it  will  only  bear  upon  our  life. 
And  surely  in  the  whole  range  of  truth  none 
have  more  points  of  contact  with  the  heart  of 
man  than  the  doctrine  of  the  Power  of  Sin.  In 
the  first  place,  then,  let  us  notice  that  Sin  is  a 
Power,  and  a  power  which  concerns  Life. 

There  is  an  old  poem  which  bears  the  curious 
title  of  "Strife  in  Heaven,"  the  idea  of  which  is 
something  like  this :  The  poet  supposes  himself 
to  be  walking  in  the  streets  of  the  New  Jerusa- 
lem, when  he  comes  to  a  crowd  of  saints  engaged 
in  a  very  earnest  discussion.  He  draws  near, 
and  listens.  The  question  they  are  discussing 
is,  Which  of  them  is  the  greatest  monument  of 
God's  saving  grace.  After  a  long  debate,  in 
which  each  states  his  case  separately,  and  each 
claims  to  have  been  by  far  the  most  wonderful 
trophy  of  God's  love  in  all  the  multitude  of  the 
redeemed,  it  is  finally  agreed  to  settle  the  matter 


154      THE   THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN 

by  a  vote.  Vote  after  vote  is  taken,  and  the  list 
of  competition  is  gradually  reduced  until  only 
two  remain.  These  are  allowed  to  state  their 
case  again,  and  the  company  stand  ready  to  join 
in  the  final  vote.  The  first  to  speak  is  a  very 
old  man.  He  begins  by  saying  that  it  is  a  mere 
waste  of  time  to  go  any  further;  it  is  absolutely 
impossible  that  God's  grace  could  have  done 
more  for  any  man  in  heaven  than  for  him.  He 
tells  again  how  he  had  led  a  most  wicked  and 
vicious  life  —  a  life  filled  up  with  every  conceiv- 
able indulgence,  and  marred  with  every  crime. 
He  has  been  a  thief,  a  liar,  a  blasphemer,  a 
drunkard,  and  a  murderer.  On  his  deathbed, 
at  the  eleventh  hour,  Christ  came  to  him  and 
he  was  forgiven. 

The  other  is  also  an  old  man  who  says,  in  a 
few  words,  that  he  was  brought  to  Christ  when 
he  was  a  boy.  He  had  led  a  quiet  and  unevent- 
ful life,  and  had  looked  forward  to  heaven  as 
early  as  he  could  remember. 

The  vote  is  taken ;  and,  of  course,  you  would 
say  it  results  in  favour  of  the  first.  But  no,  the 
votes  are  all  given  to  the  last.  We  might  have 
thought,  perhaps,  that  the  one  who  led  the  reck- 
less, godless  life  —  he  who  had  lied,  thieved, 
blasphemed,  murdered;  he  who  was  saved  by 
the  skin  of  his  teeth,  just  a  moment  before  it 
might  have  been  too  late  —  had  the  most  to  thank 
God  for.  But  the  old  poet  knew  the  deeper  truth. 
It  required  great  grace  verily  to  pluck  that  old 


THE  THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN       155 

brand  from  the  burning.  It  required  depths, 
absolutely  fathomless,  depths  of  mercy  to  for- 
give that  veteran  in  sin  at  the  close  of  all  these 
guilty  years.  But  it  required  more  grace  to 
keep  that  other  life  from  guilt  through  all  these 
tempted  years.  It  required  more  grace  to  save 
him  from  the  sins  of  his  youth,  and  keep  his 
Christian  boyhood  pure,  to  steer  him  scathless 
through  the  tempted  years  of  riper  manhood,  to 
crown  his  days  with  usefulness,  and  his  old  age 
with  patience  and  hope.  Both  started  in  life 
together;  to  one  grace  came  at  the  end,  to  the 
other  at  the  beginning.  The  first  was  saved 
from  the  guilt  of  sin,  the  second  from  \\iQ.  power 
of  sin  as  well.  The  first  was  saved  from  dying 
in  sin.  But  he  who  became  a  Christian  in  his 
boyhood  was  saved  from  living  in  sin.  The  one 
required  just  one  great  act  of  love  at  the  close 
of  life,  the  other  had  a  life  full  of  love,  —  it  was 
a  greater  salvation /^r.  His  soul  was  forgiven 
like  the  other,  but  his  life  was  redeemed  from 
destruction. 

The  lesson  to  be  gathered  from  the  old  poet's 
parable  is  that  sin  is  a  question  of  power  as  much 
as  a  question  of  guilt,  —  that  salvation  is  a  ques- 
tion of  Life  perhaps  far  more  than  a  question  of 
Death.  There  is  something  in  every  man's  life 
which  needs  saving  from,  something  which  would 
spoil  his  life  and  run  off  with  it  into  destruction 
if  let  alone.  This  principle  of  destruction  is 
the  first  great  fact  of  Sin  —  its  Power. 


156       THE   THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN 

Now  any  man  who  watches  his  life  from  day 
to  day,  and  especially  if  he  is  trying  to  steer  it 
towards  a  certain  moral  mark  which  he  has  made 
in  his  mind,  has  abundant  and  humiliating  evi- 
dence that  this  Power  is  busily  working  in  Jiis 
life.  He  finds  that  this  Power  is  working  against 
hint  in  his  life,  defeating  him  at  every  turn,  and 
persistently  opposing  all  the  good  he  tries  to 
do.  He  finds  that  his  natural  bias  is  to  break 
away  from  God  and  good.  Then  he  is  clearly 
conscious  that  there  is  an  acting  ingredient  in 
his  soul  which  not  only  neutralises  the  inclina- 
tion to  follow  the  path  which  he  knows  to  be 
straightest  and  best,  but  works  continually  and 
consistently  against  his  better  self,  and  urges 
his  life  onwards  towards  a  broader  path  which 
leads  to  destruction. 

Now  it  was  this  road  which  David  had  in  his 
mind  when  he  thanked  God  that  Jus  life  had 
been  redeemed,  or  kept  back  from  destruction. 
It  was  a  beaten  track  we  may  be  sure  in  those 
times,  as  it  is  to-day,  and  David  knew  perfectly 
well  when  he  penned  these  words  that  God's 
hand  had  veritably  saved  him  from  ending  his 
life  along  that  road.  It  was  not  enough  in  sum- 
ming up  his  life  in  his  old  age,  and  calling  upon 
his  soul  to  bless  the  Lord  for  all  His  benefits, 
to  thank  Him  simply  for  the  forgiveness  of  his 
sins.  God  has  done  far  more  for  him  than  for- 
give him  his  sin.  He  has  redeemed  his  life 
from  destruction.      He  has  saved  him  from  the 


THE  THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN       157 

all  but  omnipotent  power  of  Sin.  What  that 
power  was,  what  that  power  might  have  become, 
how  it  might  have  broken  up  and  wrecked  his 
life  a  thousand  times,  let  those  who  remember 
the  times  when  it  did  break  loose  in  David's  life 
recall.  How  little  might  we  have  guessed  that 
there  was  anything  in  the  Psalmist's  life  to  make 
him  thank  God  at  its  close  for  keeping  it  back 
from  destruction.  Brought  up  in  the  secluded 
plains  of  Bethlehem,  and  reared  in  the  pure 
atmosphere  of  country  innocence,  where  could 
the  shepherd  lad  get  any  taint  of  sin  which  could 
develop  in  after  years  to  a  great  destroying 
power.?  And  yet  he  got  it  —  somehow,  he  got 
it.  And  even  in  his  innocent  boyhood,  the  fatal 
power  lurked  there,  able  enough,  willing  enough, 
vicious  enough,  to  burst  through  the  early  bound- 
aries of  his  life  and  wreck  it  ere  it  reached  its 
prime.  All  the  time  he  was  walking  with  God ; 
all  the  time  he  was  planning  God's  temple;  all 
the  time  he  was  writing  his  holy  Psalms  — 
which  make  all  men  wonder  at  the  Psalmist's 
grace;  while  he  was  playing  their  grave  sweet 
melody  upon  his  harp  in  the  ear  of  God,  the 
power  of  sin  was  seething  and  raging  in  his 
breast,  ready  to  quench  the  very  inspiration  God 
was  giving  him,  and  ruin  his  religion  and  his 
soul  for  evermore.  God  kept  His  hand,  we  may 
be  sure,  through  David's  life  on  the  springs  of 
David's  sin;  and  there  was  nothing  so  much  to 
thank   God  for,   in  taking  the  retrospect  of  his 


IS8       THE  THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN 

eventful  course,  than  that  his  life  had  been  re- 
deemed from  this  first  great  fact  of  sin. 

David's  salvation,  to  round  off  the  point  with 
an  analogy  from  the  old  poet,  was  a  much  more 
wonderful  thing  than,  say,  the  dying  thief's  sal- 
vation. David  cost  grace  far  more  than  the 
dying  thief.  The  dying  thief  only  needed  dying 
grace.  David  needed  living  grace.  The  thief 
only  needed  forgiving  grace;  David  needed  for- 
giving grace  and  restraining  grace.  He  needed 
grace  to  keep  in  his  life,  to  keep  it  from  run- 
ning away.  But  the  thief  needed  no  restraining 
grace.  The  time  for  that  was  past.  His  life 
Jiad  run  away.  His  wild  oats  were  sown,  and 
the  harvest  was  heavy  and  bitter  Destruction 
had  come  upon  him  already  in  a  hundred  forms. 
He  had  had  no  antidote  to  the  power  of  sin, 
which  runs  so  fiercely  in  every  vein  of  every 
man,  and  he  had  destroyed  himself.  His  char- 
acter was  ruined,  his  soul  was  honey-combed 
through  and  through  with  sin.  He  could  not 
have  joined  in  David's  psalm  that  his  life  was 
saved  from  destruction.  His  death  was,  and  the 
wreck  of  his  soul  was,  but  his  life  was  lost  to 
God,  to  the  world,  and  to  himself.  His  life  had 
never  been  redeemed  as  David's  was;  so  David 
was  the  greater  debtor  to  God's  grace,  and  few 
men  have  had  greater  reason  than  he  to  praise 
God  in  old  age  for  redeeming  their  life  from 
destruction. 

Yes,  there  is  more  in  salvation  than  forgive- 


THE   THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN       159 

ness.  And  why?  Because  there  is  more  in  sin 
than  guilt.  "If  I  were  to  be  forgiven  to-day," 
men  who  do  not  know  this  say,  "  I  would  be  as 
bad  as  ever  to-morrow. "  It  is  based  on  the  fal- 
lacy, it  is  based  on  the  heresy,  that  there  is  no 
more  for  a  man  in  religion  than  forgiveness  of 
sins.  If  there  were  not  it  would  be  little  use 
to  us.  It  would  have  been  little  use  to  a  man 
like  David.  And  David's  life  would  have  been 
incomplete,  and  David's  psalm  would  have  been 
impossible,  had  he  not  been  able  to  add  to  the 
record  of  God's  pardon  the  record  of  God's  power 
in  redeeming  his  life  from  destruction.  "If  I 
were  to  be  forgiven  to-day,  I  would  be  as  bad  as 
ever  to-morrow."  No,  that's  founded  on  the 
notion  that  there  's  nothing  more  in  religion 
than  forgiveness.  If  there  were  not,  I  say  it 
with  all  solemnity,  it  would  be  very  little  use 
to  me.  We  have  all  thanked  God  for  the  dying 
thief  —  have  we  ever  thanked  God  for  redeeming 
otir  life  from  destruction.'  Destruction  is  the 
natural  destination  of  every  human  soul.  It  is 
as  natural  for  our  soul  to  go  downward  as  for  a 
stone  to  fall  to  the  ground.  Do  we  ever  thank 
God  for  redeeming  our  soul  from  that.-*  And 
when  we  thank  God  we  are  saved,  do  we  mean 
we  are  saved  from  hell,  or  do  we  think  some- 
times how  He  has  rescued  our  life  from  the 
destroying  power  of  sin.-* 

2.    The  Stain  of  Sin. 

The  power  of  sin  could  never  run  through  a 


i6o       THE   THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN 

man's  life  without  leaving  its  mark  behind.  Noth- 
ing in  the  world  ever  works  without  friction.  A 
mountain  torrent  digs  a  glen  in  the  mountain 
side ;  the  sea  cuts  a  beach  along  the  shore ;  the 
hurricane  leaves  a  thousand  fallen  witnesses  be- 
hind to  mark  its  track.  And  the  great  river  of 
sin,  as  it  rolls  through  a  human  life,  leaves  a  pile 
of  ruins  here  and  there  as  melancholy  monuments 
to  show  where  it  has  been.  Nature,  with  all  its 
strength,  is  a  wonderfully  delicate  machine,  and 
everything  has  its  reaction  somewhere  and  some 
time.  Nothing  is  allowed  to  pass,  and  nothing 
has  so  appalling  a  reaction  upon  every  one  and 
everything  as  sin. 

History  is  an  undying  monument  of  human  sin. 
The  most  prominent  thing  on  its  pages  are  the 
stains  —  the  stains  of  sin  which  time  has  not 
rubbed  out.  The  history  of  the  world,  for  the 
most  part,  has  been  written  in  the  world's  blood ; 
and  all  the  reigns  of  all  its  emperors  and  kings 
will  one  day  be  lost  in  one  absorbing  record  of 
one  great  reign  —  the  one  long  reign  of  sin.  As 
it  has  been  with  history  so  it  is  in  the  world  to- 
day. The  surface  of  society  is  white  with  leprosy. 
Take  away  the  power  of  sin  to-morrow,  the  stain 
of  sin  remains.  Whatever  the  world  may  suffer 
from  want  of  conviction  of  the  guilt  of  sin  it  will 
never  be  without  conviction  of  its  stain.  We 
see  it  in  one  another's  lives.  We  see  it  in  one 
another's  faces.  It  is  the  stain  of  the  world's 
sin  that  troubles  the  world's  conscience.     It  is 


THE   THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN       i6i 

the  stain  of  the  world's  sin  that  troubles  philan- 
thropy ;  that  troubles  the  Parliament  of  the  coun- 
try ;  that  troubles  the  Press  of  the  country.     It  is 
the  stain  of  the  world's  sin  especially  that  is  mak- 
ing a  place  in  literature  for  this  word  sin.     It  is 
this  side  of  sin  that  is  absorbing  the  finest  writing 
of  the  day;    that  is  filling  our  modern  poetry; 
that  is  making  a  thousand  modern  books  preach 
the  doctrine  of  Retribution,  which  simply  means 
the  doctrine  of  the  stain  of  sin.     Society  cares 
nothing  for  thee,  is  not  wise  enough  to  see  the 
power  of  sin,  or  religious  enough  to  see  the  guilt 
of  sin ;  but  it  cannot  fail  to  see  the  stain  of  sin. 
It  does  not  care  for  the  power  or  the  guilt  of  sin ; 
it  cares  for  the  stain  of  sin,  because  it  must.    That 
troubles  society.    That  lies  down  at  its  doors,  and 
is  an  eyesore  to  it.     It  is  a  loathsome  thing  to  be 
lying  there,  and  society  must  do  something.     So 
this  is  what  it  does  with  it :  in  one  corner  it  builds 
a  prison — this  will  rid  the  world  of  its  annoy- 
ance.    In  another  corner  it  plants  a  mad-house  — 
the  sore  may  fester  there  unseen.     In  another  it 
raises  an  hospital ;  in  a  fourth  it  lays  out  a  grave- 
yard.    Prisons,  mad-houses,  hospitals  —  these  are 
just  so  much  roofing  which  society  has  put  on  to 
hide  the  stain  of  sin.     It  is  a  good  thing  in  some 
ways  that  sin  has  always  its  stain.     Just  as  pain 
is  a  good  thing  to  tell  that  something  is  wrong, 
so  the  stain  of  sin  may  be  a  good  thing  to  tell 
that  the  power  has  broken  loose.     Society  might 
never  trouble  itself  if  it  were  not  for  the  stain. 


i62       THE   THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN 

And  in  dealing  with  the  stain  of  sin  it  sometimes 
may  do  a  very  Httle  to  maim  its  power.  But  it  is 
a  poor,  poor  remedy.  If  it  could  only  see  the 
power  and  try  to  deal  with  that  —  try  to  get  God's 
grace  to  act  on  that,  the  world  might  be  redeemed 
from  destruction  after  all.  But  it  only  sees  the 
stain  when  it  is  too  late  —  the  stain  which  has 
dropped  from  the  wound  after  the  throat  of  virtue 
has  been  cut.  Surely,  when  the  deed  is  done,  it 
is  the  least  it  could  do  to  remove  the  traces  of 
the  crime. 

But  one  need  not  go  to  society  or  history  to 
see  the  stains  of  sin.  We  see  it  in  one  another's 
lives  and  in  our  own  lives.  Our  conscience,  for 
instance,  is  not  so  quick  as  it  might  have  been  — 
the  stains  of  sin  are  there,  between  us  and  the 
light.  We  have  ignored  conscience  many  a  time 
when  it  spoke,  and  its  voice  has  grown  husky 
and  indistinct.  Our  intellectual  life  is  not  so  true 
as  it  might  have  been  —  our  intellectual  sins 
have  stained  it  and  spoilt  our  memory,  and  taken 
the  edge  of  our  sympathy,  and  filled  us  with  sus- 
picion and  one-sided  truths,  and  destroyed  the 
delicate  power  of  faith. 

There  are  few  more  touching  sights  than  to  see  a 
man  in  mature  life  trying  to  recover  himself  from 
the  stains  of  a  neglected  past.  The  past  itself  is 
gone ;  but  it  remains  in  dark  accumulated  stains 
upon  his  life,  and  he  tries  to  take  them  off  in  vain. 
There  was  a  time  once,  when  his  robe  was  white 
and  clean.     "  Keep  your  garment  unspotted  from 


THE   THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN       163 

the  world,"  they  said  to  him,  the  kind  home- 
voices,  as  he  went  out  into  hfe.  He  remembers 
well  the  first  spot  on  that  robe.  Even  the  laden 
years  that  lie  between  have  no  day  so  dark  — 
no  spot  now  lies  so  lurid  red  upon  his  soul  as 
that  first  sin.  Then  the  companion  stain  came, 
for  sins  are  mostly  twins.  Then  another,  and  an- 
other, and  many  more,  till  count  was  lost,  and 
the  whole  robe  was  patterned  over  with  sin  stains. 
The  power  of  God  has  come  to  make  a  new  man 
of  him,  but  the  stains  are  sunk  so  deeply  in  his 
soul  that  they  are  living  parts  of  him  still.  It  is 
hard  for  him  to  give  up  the  world.  It  is  hard  for 
him  to  be  pure.  It  is  hard  for  him  to  forget  the 
pictures  which  have  been  hanging  in  the  galleries 
of  his  imagination  all  his  life  —  to  forget  them 
when  he  comes  to  think  of  God ;  to  forget  them 
when  he  kneels  down  to  pray;  to  forget  them 
even  when  he  comes  to  sit  in  church.  The  past 
of  his  life  has  been  all  against  him  ;  and  even  if  his 
future  is  religious,  it  can  never  be  altogether  un- 
affected by  the  stain  of  what  has  been.  It  is  the 
stain  of  sin  which  makes  repentance  so  hard  in 
adult  life,  which  yields  the  most  impressive  argu- 
ment to  the  young  to  remember  their  Creator  in 
their  youth.  For  even  "  the  angels,"  says  Ruskin, 
"  who  rejoice  over  repentance,  cannot  but  feel  an 
uncomprehended  pain  as  they  t}'y  and  try  again 
in  vain  whether  they  may  not  warm  hard  hearts 
with  the  brooding  of  their  kind  wings." 

But  if  the  stain  of  sin  is  invisible  in  moral  and 


i64       THE   THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN 

intellectual  life,  no  one  can  possibly  be  blind  to  it 
in  bodily  life.  We  see  it  in  one  another's  lives, 
but  more  than  that,  we  see  it  in  one  another's 
faces.  Vice  writes  in  plain  characters,  and  all 
the  world  is  its  copybook.  We  can  read  it 
everywhere  and  on  everything  around,  from  pole 
to  pole.  The  drunkard,  to  take  the  conspicuous 
example,  so  stains  his  bodily  life  with  his  sin  that 
the  seeds  of  disease  are  sown  which,  long  after  he 
has  reformed,  will  germinate  in  his  death.  If  all 
the  drunkards  in  the  world  were  to  be  changed 
to-morrow,  the  stains  of  sin  in  their  bodies  even 
would  doubtless  bring  a  large  majority  —  in  a  few 
years,  less  or  more  —  to  what  was  after  all  really 
a  drunkard's  grave. 

There  is  a  physical  demonstration  of  sin  as  well 
as  a  religious ;  and  no  sin  can  come  in  among 
the  delicate  faculties  of  the  mind,  or  among  the 
coarser  fibres  of  the  body,  without  leaving  a 
stain,  either  as  a  positive  injury  to  the  life,  or, 
what  is  equally  fatal,  as  a  predisposition  to  com- 
mit the  same  sin  again.  This  predisposition  is 
always  one  of  the  most  real  and  appalling  accom- 
paniments of  the  stain  of  sin.  There  is  scarcely 
such  a  thing  as  an  isolated  sin  in  a  man's  life. 
Most  sins  can  be  accounted  for  by  what  has 
gone  before.  Every  sin,  so  to  speak,  has  its 
own  pedigree,  and  is  the  result  of  the  accu- 
mulated force,  which  means  the  accumulated 
stain  of  many  a  preparatory  sin. 

Thus  when  Peter  began  to  swear  in  the  High 


THE  THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN        165 

Priest's  palace  it  was  probably  not  the  first  time 
Peter  swore.  A  man  does  not  suddenly  acquire 
the  habit  of  uttering  oaths ;  and  when  it  is  said  of 
Peter,  "  Then  began  he  to  curse  and  to  swear,"  it 
does  not  at  all  mean  by  "  then  "  and  "  began  "  that 
he  had  not  begun  it  long  ago.  The  legitimate  in- 
ference is,  that  in  the  rough  days  of  his  fisherman's 
life,  when  the  nets  got  entangled  perhaps,  or  the 
right  wind  would  not  blow,  Peter  had  come  out 
many  a  time  with  an  oath  to  keep  his  passion 
cool.  And  now,  after  years  of  devoted  fellowship 
with  Christ,  the  stain  is  still  so  black  upon  his 
soul  that  he  curses  in  the  very  presence  of  his 
Lord.  An  outbreak  which  meets  the  public  eye 
is  generally  the  climax  of  a  series  of  sins,  which 
discretion  has  been  able,  till  then,  to  keep  out  of 
sight.  The  doctrine  of  the  stain  of  sin  has  no 
exceptions;  and  few  men,  we  may  be  sure,  can  do 
a  suddenly  notorious  wrong  without  knowing  some- 
thing in  private  of  the  series  to  which  it  belongs. 
But  the  most  solemn  fact  about  this  stain  of  sin 
is  that  so  little  can  be  done  for  it.  It  is  almost 
indelible.  There  is  a  very  solemn  fact  about  this 
stain  of  sin  —  it  can  never  be  altogether  blotted 
out.  The  guilt  of  sin  may  be  forgiven,  the  power 
of  sin  may  be  broken,  but  the  stains  of  sin  abide. 
When  it  is  said,  "  He  healeth  our  diseases,"  it 
means  indeed  that  we  may  be  healed ;  but  the 
ravages  which  sin  has  left  must  still  remain. 
Small-pox  may  be  healed,  but  it  leaves  its  mark 
behind.     A  cut  limb  may  be  cured,  but  the  scar 


166       THE   THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN 

remains  for  ever.  An  earthquake  is  over  in  three 
minutes,  but  centuries  after  the  ground  is  still 
rent  into  gulfs  and  chasms  which  ages  will  never 
close.  So  the  scars  of  sin,  on  body  and  mind  and 
soul,  live  with  us  in  silent  retribution  on  our  past, 
and  go  with  us  to  our  graves. 

And  the  stain  does  not  stop  with  our  lives. 
Every  action  of  every  man  has  an  ancestry  and  a 
posterity  in  other  lives.  The  stains  of  life  have 
power  to  spread.  The  stains  of  other  lives  have 
crossed  over  into  our  lives,  stains  from  our  lives 
into  theirs.  "  I  am  a  part,"  says  the  Laureate, 
"  of  all  that  I  have  met."  A  hundred  years  hence 
we  all  must  live  again  —  in  thoughts,  in  tenden- 
cies, in  influences,  perhaps  in  sins  and  stains  in 
other  lives.  The  sins  of  the  father  shall  be 
visited  on  the  children.  The  blight  on  the 
vicious  parent  shall  be  visited  on  the  insane  off- 
spring. The  stain  on  the  intemperate  mother 
shall  reappear  in  the  blasted  lives  of  her  drunken 
family.  Finer  forms  of  sin  in  the  same  way  — 
of  companion  on  companion,  of  brother  or  sister, 
of  teacher  and  pupil.  For  God  Himself  has 
made  the  law,  that  the  curse  must  follow  the 
breach;  and  even  He  who  healeth  our  diseases 
may  never  interfere  with  the  necessary  stain  of 
a  sinful  life. 

"  Take  my  influence,"  cried  a  sinful  man,  who 
was  dying;  "  take  my  influence,  and  bury  it  with 
me."  He  was  going  to  be  with  Christ,  his  influ- 
ence had  been  against  Him ;  he  was  leaving  it 


THE   THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN        167 

behind.  As  a  conspirator  called  by  some  act  of 
grace  to  his  sovereign's  table  remembers  with 
unspeakable  remorse  the  assassin  whom  he  left 
in  ambuscade  at  his  king's  palace  gate,  so  he 
recalls  the  traitorous  years  and  the  influences 
which  will  plot  against  his  Lord  when  he  is  in 
eternity.  Oh,  it  were  worth  being  washed  from 
sin,  were  it  only  to  escape  the  possibility  of  a 
treachery  like  that.  It  were  worth  living  a  holy 
and  self-denying  life,  were  it  only  to  join  the 
choir  invisible  of  those  almighty  dead  who  live 
again  in  lives  made  better  by  our  presence. 

3.  But  now,  lastly,  we  come  to  the  third  great 
fact  of  sin,  its  guilts  And  we  find  ourselves  face 
to  face  with  the  greatest  question  of  all,  "  What 
has  God  to  say  to  all  this  mass  of  sin?  " 

Probably  every  one  will  acknowledge  that  his 
life  bears  witness  to  the  two  first  facts  of  sin. 
Starting  with  this  admission,  a  moment's  thought 
lands  us  in  a  greater  admission.  We  all  acknowl- 
edge sin,  therefore  we  must  all  acknowledge  our- 
selves to  be  guilty.  Whether  we  feel  it  or  no, 
guilt  is  inseparable  from  sin.  Physical  evil  may 
make  a  man  sorry,  but  moral  evil  makes  him 
guilty.  It  may  not  make  him  feel  guilty  —  we 
are  speaking  of  facts  —  he  is  guilty.  So  we  are 
guilty  for  our  past  lives.  We  may  be  sorry  for 
the  past.  But  it  is  not  enough  that  we  are  sorry, 
we  are  guilty  for  the  past.  We  are  more  than 
sinners,  we  are  criminals.  This  is  where  the 
literary  conception  of  sin  is  altogether  defective 


i68       THE  THREE   FACTS   OF   SIN 

and  must  be  supplemented.  It  knows  nothing, 
and  can  teach  nothing,  of  the  guilt  of  a  sinner's 
soul.  It  is  when  we  come  to  God  that  we  learn 
this.  God  is  our  Father,  but  God  is  our  Judge. 
And  when  we  know  that,  our  sin  takes  on  a 
darker  colouring.  It  grows  larger  than  02tr  life, 
and  suddenly  seems  to  be  infinite.  The  whole 
world,  the  whole  universe,  is  concerned  in  it. 
Sin  only  made  us  recoil  from  ourselves  before ; 
now  it  makes  God  recoil  from  us.  We  are  out  of 
harmony  with  God.  Our  iniquities  have  sepa- 
rated us  from  God,  and  in  some  mysterious  way 
we  have  come  to  be  answerable  to  Him.  We 
feel  that  the  Lord  has  turned  and  looked  upon  us 
as  He  looked  at  Peter,  and  we  can  only  go  out 
and  weep  bitterly. 

If  these  experiences  are  foreign  to  our  souls, 
we  must  feel  our  sense  of  guilt  when  we  come  to 
look  at  Christ.  Christ  could  not  move  through 
the  world  without  the  mere  spectacle  of  His  life 
stirring  to  their  very  depths  the  hearts  of  every 
one  whose  path  He  crossed.  And  Christ  cannot 
move  through  the  chambers  of  our  thoughts  with- 
out the  dazzling  contrast  to  ourselves  startling 
into  motion  the  sense  of  burning  shame  and  sin. 
But,  above  all,  Christ  could  not  die  upon  the  cross 
without  witnessing  to  all  eternity  of  the  appalling 
greatness  of  human  guilt.  And  it  is  the  true 
climax  of  conviction  which  the  prophet  speaks 
of:  "  They  shall  look  on  Me  whom  they  have 
pierced,  and  they  shall  mourns 


THE   THREE   FACTS    OF   SIN       169 

This  conviction  of  sin,  in  this  the  deepest  sense, 
is  not  a  thing  to  talk  about,  but  to  feel ;  and  when 
it  is  felt,  it  cannot  be  talked  about;  it  is  too  deep 
for  words.  It  comes  as  an  unutterable  woe  upon 
the  life,  and  rests  there,  in  dark  sorrow  and  heavi- 
ness, till  Christ  speaks  Peace. 

Such,  in  outline,  are  the  three  facts  of  sin. 
They  are  useful  in  two  ways :  they  teach  us  our- 
selves, and  they  teach  us  God.  It  is  along  these 
three  lines  that  you  will  find  salvation.  Run  your 
eye  along  the  first  —  the  power  of  sin  —  and  you 
will  understand  Jesus.  Thou  shalt  call  His  name 
Jesus,  because  He  saves  His  people  from  their 
sins.  Look  at  the  second — the  stain  of  sin  — 
and  you  will  understand  the  righteousness  of 
Christ ;  you  will  see  the  need  of  the  one  pure 
life  ;  you  will  be  glad  that  there  has  been  one  who 
has  kept  His  garment  unspotted  from  the  world. 

Look  at  the  third,  and  you  will  see  the  Lamb 
of  God  taking  away  the  sin  of  the  world.  You 
will  understand  the  atonement;  you  will  pray, — 

"  Let  the  water  and  the  blood, 
From  Thy  riven  side  which  flowed, 
Be  of  sin  the  double  cure, 
Cleanse  me  from  its  guilt  and  power." 


NUMBER  VIII 


The  Three  Facts 
of  Salvation 


SUPPLEMENT   TO 

"THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SIN 


"  Who  forgiveth  all  thitte  iniquities; 
Who  healeth  all  thy  diseases; 
Who  redeemeth  thy  life  from  destruction.^^ 

Ps.  ciii.  3,  4. 

LAST  Sabbath  we   were   engaged   with   the 
three  facts  of  Sin.     To-day  we  come   to 
the  three  facts  of  salvation. 
The  three  facts  of  sin  were :  — 

1.  The  Guilt  of  Sin  —  "Who  forgiveth  all 
thine  iniquities." 

2.  The  Stain  of  Sin  —  "Who  healeth  all  thy 
diseases." 

3.  The  Power  of  Sin  —  "  Who  redeemeth  thy 
life  from  destruction." 

And  now  we  come  to  the  three  facts  of  salva- 
tion—  the  emphasis  on  the  first  words  of  each 
clause  instead  of  the  last. 

I.  Who  forgiveth.  2.  Who  healeth.  3.  Who 
redeemeth. 

Every  one  who  comes  into  the  world  experi- 
ences less  or  more  of  the  three  facts  of  sin ;  and 


THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION    171 

every  one  is  allowed  to  live  on  in  the  world 
mainly  that  he  may  also  experience  the  three 
great  facts  of  salvation.  God  keeps  the  most 
of  us  alive  from  day  to  day  with  this  one  object. 
Sin  has  got  hold  of  us,  and  He  is  giving  us  time 
—  time  for  grace  to  get  the  upper  hand  of  it, 
time  to  work  out  the  three  facts  of  salvation  in 
our  lives  with  fear  and  trembling  against  the 
three  facts  of  sin.  Our  being,  therefore,  lies 
between  these  two  great  sets  of  facts,  the  dark 
set  and  the  bright,  and  life  is  just  the  battlefield 
on  which  they  fight  it  out.  If  the  bright  side 
win,  it  is  a  bright  life  —  saved.  If  the  dark  side, 
it  is  a  dark  life  —  lost. 

We  have  seen  how  the  three  dark  facts  have 
already  begun  to  work  upon  our  life;  and  that 
they  are  not  only  working  at  our  life,  but  sapping 
it,  and  preying  upon  it  every  hour  of  the  day. 
And  now  we  stand  face  to  face  with  the  question 
which  is  wrung  out  from  our  life  by  the  very  sin 
which  is  destroying  it,  "  What  must  I  do  to  be 
saved?  " 

The  first  fact  about  which  we  would  ask  this 
question  —  to  begin  once  more  with  the  fact 
which  most  conspicuously  concerns  life  —  is  the 
fact  of  the  Power  of  Sin.  What  must  I  do  to  be 
saved  from  the  power  of  sin?  What  most  of  us 
feel  we  really  want  religion  to  do  for  us,  though 
it  is  not  the  deepest  experience,  is  to  save  us 
from  something  which  we  feel  in  our  life  —  a 
very  terrible  something  which  is  slowly  dragging 


172    THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION 

our  life  downward  to  destruction.  This  some- 
thing has  gained  an  unaccountable  hold  upon  us; 
it  seems  to  make  us  go  wrong  whether  we  will  or 
no,  and  instead  of  exhausting  itself  with  all  the 
attempts  it  has  made  upon  our  life  in  the  past,  it 
seems  to  get  stronger  and  stronger  every  day. 
Even  the  Christian  knows  that  this  strange  wild 
force  is  just  at  his  very  door,  and  if  he  does  not 
pray  to-morrow  morning,  for  instance,  before  the 
day  is  out  it  will  have  wrought  some  mischief  in 
his  life.  If  he  does  not  pray,  in  the  most  natural 
way  in  the  world,  without  any  effort  of  his  own, 
without  even  thinking  about  it,  it  will  necessarily 
come  to  the  front  and  make  his  life  go  wrong. 
Now,  wherever  this  comes  from,  or  whatever  it 
is,  it  is  a  great  fact,  and  the  first  practical  ques- 
tion in  religion  that  rises  to  many  a  mind  is  this, 
"  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  from  this  inevi- 
table, and  universal,  and  terrible  fact  of  Sin?" 

We  have  probably  all  made  certain  experi- 
ments upon  this  fact  already,  and  we  could  all 
give  some  explanation,  at  least,  of  what  we  are 
doing  to  be  saved. 

If  some  of  us  were  asked,  for  instance,  what 
was  our  favourite  fact  of  salvation  for  resisting 
the  power  of  sin,  we  might  say  the  fact  that  we 
were  doing  our  best.  Well,  it  is  a  great  thing 
for  any  man  to  be  doing  his  best.  But  two  ques- 
tions will  test  the  value  of  this  method  of  resist- 
ing the  power  of  sin.  In  the  first  place,  How  is 
your  best  doing?     In  the  second  place,  Do  you 


THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION     173 

think  you  could  not  do  better?  As  to  how  your 
best  is  doing,  you  would  probably  admit  that,  on 
the  whole,  it  was  not  doing  very  well.  Your 
best,  in  fact,  if  you  were  to  be  candid,  has  not 
been  much  to  boast  of  after  all.  And  as  regards 
your  not  doing  better  you  might  also  admit  that 
in  some  ways,  perhaps,  yoii  could.  The  fact  of 
salvation  then  is  evidently  a  poor  one,  as  far  as 
results  are  concerned,  and  may  be  judiciously 
laid  aside. 

Then  another  experiment  people  try  to  break 
the  power  of  sin  is  to  get  thoroughly  absorbed  in 
something  else  —  business,  or  literature,  or  some 
favourite  pursuit.  It  is  in  one's  spare  hours  sin 
comes  to  us  and  we  try  to  have  no  sin  by  having 
no  spare  hours.  But  our  very  preoccupation 
may  then  be  one  continuous  sin.  And,  besides, 
if  a  man  have  no  spare  hours,  he  will  have  spare 
minutes,  and  sin  comes  on  generally  in  a  minute. 
Most  sins,  indeed,  are  done  in  minutes.  They 
take  hours  to  execute,  it  may  be ;  but  in  a  mo- 
ment the  plot  is  hatched,  the  will  consents,  and 
the  deed  is  done.  Preoccupation  then  is  clearly 
no  saviour. 

Then  there  are  others  who  withdraw  from  the 
world  altogether,  to  break  with  sin,  and  live  the 
solitary  life  of  the  recluse.  But  they  forget  that 
sin  is  not  in  the  sinful  world  without,  but  in  the 
sinful  heart  within,  and  that  it  enters  the  hermit's 
solitary  cell  as  persistently  as  the  wicked  world 
around.     So  solitude  comes  to  be  no  saviour. 


174    THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION 

And  there  are  others  still  who  take  refuge  in 
religiousness.  In  going  to  church,  for  instance, 
and  in  religious  society  and  books.  But  there  is 
not  necessarily  any  more  power  to  resist  sin 
within  the  four  walls  of  a  church  or  the  pages 
of  a  religious  book,  than  between  the  walls  of  a 
theatre  or  the  boards  of  a  novel.  There  may  be 
less  temptation  there,  not  necessarily  more  power. 
For  there  is  no  strength  in  mere  religious  cere- 
monies to  cancel  the  power  of  sin,  and  many  a 
man  proves  this,  after  years  and  years  of  church, 
by  wakening  to  find  the  power  of  sin  in  his  breast 
unchanged,  and  breaking  out,  perhaps,  in  every 
form  of  vice.  Neither  is  religiousness,  therefore, 
any  escape  from  the  dominion  of  sin. 

And  lastly,  some  of  us  have  resort  to  doc- 
trines. We  have  got  the  leading  points  of  cer- 
tain doctrines  worn  into  our  minds,  and  because 
these  have  a  religious  name  we  are  apt  to  think 
they  have  also  a  religious  power.  In  reality, 
while  dealing  with  the  theory  of  grace  and  sin, 
we  may  leave  the  power  to  resist  it  untouched. 
And  many  a  pen  has  been  busy  with  a  book  on 
the  doctrine  of  sin  while  the  life  which  employed 
it  was  going  to  destruction  for  want  of  salvation 
from  its  power. 

There  is  one  doctrine  especially  with  which 
the  word  salvation  is  most  often  connected  and 
to  which  many  look  for  their  deliverance  from 
the  power  of  indwelling  sin.  And  it  may  seem  a 
startling  statement  to  make,  but  it  will  emphasise 


THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION    175 

a  distinction  which  cannot  be  too  clearly  drawn, 
that  even  the  atonement  itself  is  not  the  answer 
to  the  question,  "What  must  I  do  to  be  saved 
from  the  power  of  sin?"  The  answer  entirely 
depends  on  the  atonement,  but  it  is  not  the 
atonement.  The  atonement  is  7tot  the  fact  of 
salvation  which  saves  the  sinner  from  the  power 
of  sin.  If  you  believed  in  the  atonement  to-day, 
if  you  were  absolutely  assured  that  your  past 
sins  were  all  forgiven,  that  would  be  no  criterion 
that  you  would  not  be  as  bad  as  ever  again  to- 
morrow. The  atonement,  therefore,  is  not  the 
fact  which  deals  with  the  power  of  sin.  The 
atonement  deals  with  a  point.  We  are  coming 
to  that.  Just  now  we  are  talking  of  a  life.  We 
are  looking  out  for  something  which  will  deal 
with  something  in  our  life  —  something  which 
will  redeem  our  life  from  destruction.  And  a 
man  may  believe  the  atonement  whose  life  is  not 
redeemed  from  destruction. 

You  have  gone  out  into  the  country  on  a  sum- 
mer morning,  and  as  you  passed  some  little  rustic 
mill,  you  saw  the  miller  come  out  to  set  his  sim- 
ple machinery  agoing  for  the  day.  He  turned 
on  the  sluice,  but  the  water-wheel  would  not 
move.  Then,  with  his  strong  arm,  he  turned  it 
once  or  twice,  then  left  it  to  itself  to  turn  busily 
all  the  day.  It  is  a  sorry  illustration  in  detail, 
but  its  principle  means  this,  that  the  atonement 
is  the  first  great  turn  as  it  were  which  God  gives 
in  the  morning  of  conversion  to  the  wheel  of  the 


1/6    THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION 

Christian's  life.  Without  it  nothing  more  would 
be  possible :  alone  it  would  not  be  enough.  The 
water  of  life  must  flow  in  a  living  stream  all 
through  the  working  day  and  keep  pouring  its 
power  into  it  ceaselessly  till  the  life  and  the  work 
are  done. 

Now,  practically  everything  depends  in  salva- 
tion upon  the  clearness  with  which  this  great 
truth  is  recognised.  Sin  is  2. power  in  our  life ;  let 
us  fairly  understand  that  it  can  only  be  met  by 
another  power.  The  fact  of  sin  works  all  through 
our  life.  The  death  of  Christ,  which  is  the  atone- 
ment, reconciles  us  to  God,  makes  our  religion 
possible,  puts  us  in  the  way  of  the  power  which 
is  to  come  against  our  sin  and  deliver  our  life 
from  destruction.  But  the  Water  of  Life,  which 
flows  from  the  life  of  Christ,  is  the  power  itself. 
He  redeemeth  my  life,  by  His  life,  from  destruc- 
tion. This  is  the  power,  Paul  says,  which  re- 
deemed his  life  from  destruction.  Christ's  life, 
not  His  death,  living  in  his  life,  absorbing  it, 
impregnating  it,  transforming  it.  "  Christ,"  as  he 
confessed,  ^' in  Me."  And  this,  therefore,  is  the 
meaning  of  a  profound  sentence  in  which  Paul 
states  the  true  answer  to  the  question,  What  must 
I  do  to  be  saved  ?  records  this  first  great  fact  of 
salvation  and  pointedly  distinguishes  it  from  the 
other.  "  If  when  we  were  enemies  we  were  recon- 
ciled X.o  God  by  the  death  of  His  Son,  much  more, 
being  reconciled,  we  shall  be  saved  by  His  life" 
(Rom.  v.  10). 


THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION    177 

"  We  shall  be  saved  by  His  life^'  says  Paul. 
Paul  meant  no  disrespect  to  the  atonement  when 
he  said,  "  We  shall  be  saved  by  his  life."  He 
was  bringing  out  in  relief  one  of  the  great  facts  of 
salvation.  If  God  gives  atoning  power  with  one 
hand,  and  power  to  save  the  life  from  destruction 
with  the  other,  there  is  no  jealousy  between. 
Both  are  from  God.  If  you  call  the  one  justifica- 
tion and  the  other  sanctification,  God  is  the 
author  of  them  both.  If  Paul  seems  to  take 
something  from  the  one  doctrine  and  add  it  to 
the  other,  he  takes  nothing  from  God.  Atone- 
ment is  from  God.  Power  to  resist  sin  is  from 
God.  When  we  say  we  shall  be  saved  by  the 
death  of  Christ,  it  is  true.  When  Paul  says,  "  We 
shall  be  saved  by  His  life,"  it  is  true.  Christ  is 
all  and  in  all,  the  beginning  and  the  end.  Only 
when  we  are  speaking  of  one  fact  of  sin,  let  us 
speak  of  the  corresponding  fact  of  grace.  When 
the  thing  we  want  is  power  to  redeem  our  life 
from  destruction,  let  us  apply  the  gift  which  God 
has  given  us  for  our  life,  and  for  guilt  the  gift  of 
guilt.  When  an  Israelite  was  bitten  in  the  wilder- 
ness, he  never  thought  of  applying  manna  to  the 
wound.  The  manna  was  for  his  life.  But  he 
did  think  of  applying  the  brazen  serpent.  The 
manna  would  never  have  cured  his  sin;  nor 
would  the  brazen  serpent  have  kept  him  from 
starving.  Suppose  he  had  said,  "  Now  I  am 
healed  by  this  serpent,  I  feel  cured,  and  I  need 
not  eat  this  manna  any  more.     The  serpent  has 


178    THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION 

done  it  all,  and  I  am  well."  The  result  would 
have  been,  of  course,  that  he  would  have  died. 
The  man,  to  be  sure,  was  cured,  but  he  has  to  live, 
and  if  he  eats  no  manna  his  life  must  languish,  go 
to  destruction,  die.  Without  taking  any  trouble 
about  it,  simply  by  the  inevitable  processes  of 
nature,  he  would  have  died.  The  manna  was 
God's  provision  to  redeem  his  life  from  destruc- 
tion, after  the  serpent  had  redeemed  it  from 
death.  And  if  he  did  nothing  to  stop  the  natural 
progress  of  destruction,  in  the  natural  course  of 
things,  he  must  die.  Now  there  is  no  jealousy 
between  these  two  things  —  the  manna  is  from 
God  and  the  serpent  is  from  God.  But  they  are 
different  gifts  for  different  things.  The  serpent 
gave  life,  but  could  not  keep  life;  the  manna 
kept  life,  but  could  not  give  life.  Therefore, 
the  Israelites  were  saved  by  the  serpent,  but  they 
did  not  try  to  eat  the  serpent. 

To  apply  this  to  the  case  in  hand.  The  atone- 
ment of  Christ  is  the  brazen  serpent.  Christ's 
life  is  the  manna  —  the  bread  of  life.  Our  sins 
are  not  forgiven  by  bread,  nor  are  our  lives  sup- 
ported by  death.  Our  life  is  not  redeemed  from 
destruction  by  the  atonement,  nor  kept  from  day 
to  day  from  the  power  of  sin  by  the  atonement. 
Our  life  is  not  redeemed  from  destruction  by  the 
death  of  Christ,  nor  kept  from  day  to  day  by  the 
death  of  Christ.  But  we  are  saved,  as  Paul  says, 
by  his  "  lifeT  We  cannot  live  upon  death.  Mors 
janua  viUB  —  death  is  the  gate  of  life.     And  after 


THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION     179 

we  have  entered  the  gateway  by  the  death  of 
Christ,  we  shall   be  saved  by  His  life. 

To  sum  up,  therefore.  It  is  one  thing,  there- 
fore, to  be  saved  by  the  death  of  Christ,  and 
another  to  be  saved  by  His  life ;  and  while  both 
expressions  are  correct,  to  talk  of  being  saved  by 
the  death  of  Christ  is  not  so  scriptural  as  to  talk 
of  being  saved  by  the  life  of  Christ;  and  Paul, 
with  his  invariable  conciseness  on  important 
points,  has  brought  out  the  facts  of  salvation 
with  profound  insight  in  the  pregnant  antithesis 
already  quoted,  "  When  we  were  enemies  we  were 
reconciled  by  the  death  of  Christ,  now  we  shall  be 
saved  by  His  life." 

What  first  fact  of  salvation,  therefore,  is  to  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  first  great  fact  of  sin, 
is  not  our  own  efforts,  our  own  religiousness,  our 
own  doctrine,  the  atonement,  or  the  death  of 
Christ,  but  the  power  of  the  life  of  Christ. 
He  redeemeth  my  life  from  destruction.  How? 
By  His  life.  This  is  the  fact  of  salvation.  It 
takes  life  to  redeem  life  —  power  to  resist  power. 
Sin  is  a  ceaseless,  undying  power  in  our  life.  A 
ceaseless,  undying  power  must  come  against  it. 
And  there  is  only  one  such  power  in  the  universe 
—  only  one,  which  has  a  chance  against  sin :  the 
power  of  the  living  Christ.  God  knew  the  power 
of  sin  in  a  human  soul  when  He  made  so  great 
provision.  He  knew  how  great  it  was  ;  He  cal- 
culated it.  Then  He  sent  the  living  Christ 
against  it.     It  is  the  careful  and  awful  estimate 


i8o    THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION 

of  the  power  of  sin.  God  saw  that  nothing  else 
would  do.  It  would  not  do  to  start  our  religion, 
then  leave  us  to  ourselves.  It  would  not  do  with 
hearts  like  ours,  yearning  to  sin,  to  leave  us  with 
religiousness  or  moral  philosophy  or  doctrine. 
Christ  must  come  Himself,  and  live  with  us.  He 
must  come  and  make  His  abode  with  us.  He  can- 
not trust  us  from  His  sight ;  so  that  when  we  live 
it  shall  be  not  we  that  live,  but  Christ  living  in  us, 
and  the  life  which  we  are  now  living  in  the  flesh 
must  be  lived  by  the  power  of  the  Son  of  God. 

What,  then,  must  I  do  to  be  saved?  Receive 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved. 
Slave  of  a  thousand  sins,  receive  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  into  thy  life,  and  thy  life,  thy  far-spent 
life,  shall  yet  be  redeemed  from  destruction. 
Receive  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  who 
hast  lived  in  the  far  famine  land  shalt  return  and 
live  once  more  by  thy  Father's  side.  Thou  seek- 
est  not  a  welcome  to  thy  Father's  house  —  of  thy 
welcome  thou  hast  never  been  afraid.  But  thou 
seekest  a  livelihood ;  thou  seekest  Power.  Thou 
seekest  power  to  be  pure,  to  be  true,  to  be  free 
from  the  power  of  sin.  "  What  must  I  do  to  be 
saved  from  that?  What  power  will  free  me  from 
that?"  The  power  of  the  living  Christ!  "As 
many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He  power 
to  become  the  sons  of  God."  "  Power  to  become 
the  sons  of  God  "  —  the  great  fact  of  salvation. 
Receive  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved.     (JLutJicr  Santa  Scala.~) 


THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION    i8i 

Christ,  therefore,  is  the  power  of  God  unto  sal- 
vation—  the  counter-fact  to  the  power  oi  sin  unto 
destruction.  Christ  is  the  way  —  He  is  also  the 
Truth  and  the  Life.  This  power,  this  life,  is 
within  our  reach  each  moment  of  our  life;  as 
near,  as  free,  as  abundant  as  the  air  we  breathe. 
A  breath  of  prayer  in  the  morning,  and  the 
morning  life  is  sure.  A  breath  of  prayer  in  the 
evening,  and  the  evening  blessing  comes.  So 
our  life  is  redeemed  from  destruction.  Breath  by 
breath  our  life  comes  into  us.  Inch  by  inch  it  is 
redeemed  from  destruction.  So  much  prayer  to- 
day —  so  many  inches  redeemed  to-day.  So 
much  water  of  life  to-day  — so  many  turns  of  the 
great  wheel  of  life  to-day.  Therefore,  if  we  want 
to  be  saved  —  whosoever  will,  let  him  take  of  the 
water  of  life  freely.  If  you  want  to  be  saved, 
breathe  the  breath  of  life.  And  if  you  cannot 
breathe,  let  the  groans  which  cannot  be  uttered 
go  up  to  God,  and  the  power  will  come.  To  all 
of  us  alike,  if  we  but  ask  we  shall  receive.  For 
God  makes  surpassing  allowances,  and  He  will 
do  unto  the  least  of  us  exceeding  abundantly 
above  all  that  we  ask  or  think. 

Secondly,  and  more  briefly,  the  second  fact  of 
sin  is  the  stain  of  sin,  the  second  fact  of  salvation. 
"  He  healeth  all  thy  diseases."  The  stain  of  sin 
is  a  very  much  more  complicated  thing  even  than 
the  power  of  sin  ;  and  that  for  this  reason  —  that 
most  of  it  lies  outside  our  own  life.     If  it  only 


i82    THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION 

lay  in  dark  blotches  upon  our  own  life,  we  might 
set  to  work  to  rub  it  out.  But  it  is  a  blind  vision 
of  sin  which  confines  has  crossed  over  into  other 
lives  all  through  the  years  that  have  gone,  and 
left  its  awful  mark  —  our  mark,  on  every  soul  we 
touched  since  the  most  distant  past. 

A  young  man  once  lay  upon  his  deathbed. 
He  was  a  Christian,  but  for  many  days  a  black 
cloud  had  gathered  upon  his  brow.  Just  before 
his  last  breath,  he  beckoned  to  the  friends  around 
his  bed.  "Take  my  influence,"  he  said,  "and 
bury  it  with  me."  He  stood  on  the  very  thresh- 
old of  glory.  But  the  stain  of  sin  was  burning 
hot  upon  his  past.  Bury  his  influence  with  him ! 
No,  his  influence  will  remain.  His  life  has  gone 
to  be  with  God,  who  gave  it ;  but  his  influence  — 
he  has  left  no  influence  for  Christ.  His  future 
will  be  for  ever  with  the  Lord.  The  unburied 
past  remains  behind,  perhaps,  for  ever  to  be 
against  him.  The  black  cloud  which  hangs  over 
many  a  dying  brow  means  the  stain  of  an  influ- 
ence lost  for  Christ  —  means  with  many  a  man 
who  dies  a  Christian,  that  though  his  guilt  has 
been  removed  and  his  life  redeemed  from  destruc- 
tion, the  infection  of  his  past  lurks  in  the  world 
still,  and  his  diseases  fester  in  open  sores  among 
all  the  companions  of  his  life. 

What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  from  the  stain  of 
sin?  Gather  up  your  influence,  and  see  how 
much  has  been  for  Christ.  Then  undo  all  that 
has  been  against  Him.     It  will  never  be  healed 


THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION    183 

till  then.  This  is  the  darkest  stain  upon  your 
life.  The  stain  of  sin  concerns  your  own  soul, 
but  that  is  a  smaller  matter.  That  can  be  undone 
—  in  part.  There  are  open  sores  enough  in  our 
past  life  to  make  even  heaven  tremble.  But  God 
is  healing  them.  He  is  blotting  them  from  His 
own  memory  and  from  ours.  If  the  stains  that 
were  there  had  lingered,  life  would  have  been  a 
long  sigh  of  agony.  But  salvation  has  come  to 
our  soul.  God  is  helping  you  to  use  the  means 
for  repairing  a  broken  life.  He  restoreth  thy 
soul,  He  healeth  all  thy  diseases.  But  thy 
brother's  soul,  and  thy  brother's  diseases?  The 
worst  of  thy  stains  have  spread  far  and  wide 
v^\\\\oiit  thyself;  and  God  will  only  heal  them, 
perhaps,  by  giving  you  grace  to  deal  with  them. 
You  must  retrace  your  steps  over  that  unburied 
past,  and  undo  what  you  have  done.  You  must 
go  to  the  other  lives  which  are  stained  with  your 
blood-red  stains  and  rub  them  out.  Perhaps  you 
did  not  lead  them  into  their  sin ;  but  you  did  not 
lead  them  out  of  it.  You  did  not  show  them  you 
were  a  Christian.  You  left  a  worse  memory  with 
them  than  your  real  one.  You  pretended  you 
were  just  like  them  —  that  your  sources  of  hap- 
piness were  just  the  same.  You  did  not  tell  them 
you  had  a  power  which  kept  your  life  from  sin. 
You  did  not  take  them  to  the  closet  you  had  at 
home,  and  let  them  see  you  on  3^our  knees,  nor 
tell  them  of  your  Bible  which  was  open  twice  a 
day.      And  all  these  negatives  were  stains  and 


1 84    THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION 

sins.  It  is  a  great  injustice  to  do  to  any  one  we 
know  —  the  worst  turn  we  could  do  a  friend,  to 
keep  the  best  secret  back,  and  let  him  go  as 
calmly  to  hell  as  we  are  going  to  heaven. 

If  we  cannot  bury  our  influence,  thank  God  if 
here  and  there  we  can  undo  it  still.  The  other 
servant  in  the  kitchen,  the  clerk  on  the  next  stool, 
the  lady  who  once  lived  in  the  next  house,  we 
must  go  to  them,  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  take 
the  stain  away.  And  let  the  thought  that  much 
that  we  have  done  can  never  be  undone,  that 
many  whose  lives  have  suffered  from  our  sins 
have  gone  away  into  eternity  with  the  stains  still 
unremoved,  that  when  we  all  stand  round  the 
throne  together,  even  from  the  right  hand  of 
the  judgment  seat  of  Christ,  we  may  behold  on 
the  left  among  the  lost  the  stains  of  our  own  sin, 
still  livid  on  some  soul  —  let  this  quicken  our 
steps  as  we  go  to  obliterate  the  influence  of  our 
past,  and  turn  our  fear  into  a  safeguard  as  we  try 
to  keep  our  future  life  for  Christ. 

The  second  fact  of  salvation,  therefore,  Is  to  be 
effected  by  God  in  part  and  by  ourselves  in  part 
—  by  God  as  regards  ourselves ;  by  God  and  our- 
selves as  regards  others.  He  is  to  heal  our  dis- 
eases, and  we  are  to  spread  the  balm  He  gives  us 
wherever  we  have  spread  our  sin. 

^^         Lastly^  the  third  great  fact  of  sin  is  guilt  —  the 

MA,-if  third  fact  of  salvation  is  forgiveness.  "He  forgiveth 

all  thine  iniquities."    The  first  question  we  asked 


THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION    185 

came  out  of  our  life ;  the  second  mostly  from  our 
memory ;   but  the  third  rises  up  out  of  conscience. 

Our  first  cry,  as  we  looked  at  our  future,  was, 
"  Where  can  I  get  power?  "  Now  we  are  looking 
at  our  past,  and  the  question  is,  "  Where  can  I 
get  pardon?"  The  questions  which  conscience 
sends  up  to  us  are  always  the  deepest  questions. 
And  the  man  who  has  never  sent  up  the  ques- 
tion, "Where  can  I  get  pardon?"  has  never  been 
into  his  conscience  to  find  out  the  deepest  want 
he  has.  It  is  not  enough  for  him  to  look  life- 
ward  ;  he  must  also  look  Godward.  And  it  is 
not  enough  to  discover  the  stain  of  his  past,  and 
cry  out,  "  I  have  sinned."  But  he  must  see  the 
guilt  of  his  life  and  cry,  "  I  have  sinned  against 
God."  The  fact  of  salvation  which  God  has  pro- 
vided to  meet  the  fact  of  guilt,  although  it  is  the 
most  stupendous  fact  of  all,  only  comes  home  to 
man  when  he  feels  a  criminal  and  stands  like  a 
guilty  sinner,  for  pardon  at  God's  bar. 

It  is  not  enough  for  him  then  to  invoke  God's 
strength  against  the  power  of  sin.  Just  as  the 
fact  which  meets  the  guilt  of  sin,  as  we  have 
seen,  can  never  meet  the  power  of  sin,  so  the 
fact  which  meets  the  power  of  sin  can  never  meet 
the  fact  of  guilt.  Manna  was  what  was  required 
for  a  man's  life ;  but  it  is  no  use  against  his  guilt. 
//  is  7iotJiing  that  he  makes  a  good  resolution  not 
to  do  wrong  any  more,  that  he  asked  Christ  to 
come  and  live  with  him  and  break  the  power  of 
sin,  and  redeem  his  life  from  destruction.     God 


1 86   THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION 

has  something  to  say  to  him  before  that.  Some- 
thing must  happen  to  him  before  that.  He  must 
come  and  give  an  account  of  himself  before  that. 
The  good  resolution  is  all  very  laudable  for  the 
days  to  come,  but  what  about  the  past?  God 
wants  to  know  about  the  past.  It  may  be  conven- 
ient for  us  to  forget  the  past,  but  God  cannot  forget 
it.  We  have  done  wrong,  and  wrong-doing  must 
be  punished.  Wrong-doing  must  be  punished  — 
must ;  this  is  involved  in  one  of  the  facts  of  sin. 
Therefore  the  punishment  of  wrong-doing  must 
be  involved  in  one  of  the  facts  of  salvation.  It  is 
not  in  the  first  two.  It  must  be  somewhere  in  this. 
Now  the  punishment  of  sin  is  death.  In  the 
day  that  thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shalt  surely  die. 
Therefore  death  is  the  punishment  which  must  be 
in  one  of  the  facts  of  salvation.  It  was  not  in  the 
other  two.  It  must  be  somewhere  in  this.  It 
will  not  meet  the  case  if  the  sinner  professes  his 
penitence  and  promises  humbly  never  to  do  the 
like  again.  It  will  not  meet  the  case  if  he  comes 
on  his  knees  to  apologise  to  God,  and  ask  Him 
simply  to  forget  that  he  has  sinned,  or  beg  Him 
to  have  pity  on  the  misfortunes  of  his  past.  God 
did  not  say,  "  In  the  day  thou  eatest  thereof  I 
will  pity  thy  misfortunes,  in  the  day  thou  eatest 
thereof  thou  shalt  surely  apologise^  or  thou  shalt 
surely  repent^  but  "  in  the  day  thou  eatest  thereof 
thou  shalt  surely  diey  So  death,  and  nothing 
less  than  death,  must  be  in  the  fact  of  salvation 
from  the  guilt  of  sin,  if  such  salvation  is  to  be. 


THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION    187 

This  fact,  this  most  solemn  necessity  under- 
stood and  felt,  the  rest  is  plain.  We  all  know 
Some  one  died.  We  all  know  Who  deserved  to 
die.  We  all  know  Who  did  die.  We  know  we 
were  not  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  we  were 
not  bruised  for  our  iniquities.  But  we  know  Who 
was.  The  Lord  hath  not  dealt  with  us  according 
to  our  iniquities ;  but  we  know  with  Whom  He 
has.  We  know  Who  bare  our  sins  in  His  own 
body  on  the  tree,  —  One  who  had  none  of  His 
own.  We  know  who  was  lifted  up  like  the  ser- 
pent in  the  wilderness  —  Him  who  died  the  just 
for  the  unjust.  If  we  know  this,  we  know  the 
great  fact  of  salvation,  for  it  is  this. 

It  only  remains  to  answer  one  question  more. 
How  is  a  poor  sinner  to  make  this  great  fact  his? 
And  the  answer  is,  By  trusting  Christ.  He  has 
nothing  else  wherewith  to  make  it  his.  The 
atonement  is  a  fact.  Forgiveness  is  a  fact.  Let 
him  believe  it.  He  does  not  understand  it.  He 
i*  not  asked  to  understand  it.  The  proper  way 
to  accept  a  fact  is  to  believe  it;  and  whosoever 
believeth  in  Him  shall  not  perish,  but  have  ever- 
lasting life.  It  is  well  to  understand  it,  and  you 
may  try  to  understand  it  if  you  can,  but  till  then 
you  must  believe  it.  For  it  is  a  fact,  and  your 
understanding  it  will  not  make  it  less  or  more  a 
fact.  The  death  of  Christ  will  always  be  a  fact. 
Forgiveness  of  sins  will  always  be  a  fact.  Son, 
accept  the  facts  of  sin  :  accept  the  facts  of  grace. 
The  atonement,  you  say,  confuses  you.     You  do 


1 88  THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION 

not  understand  its  bearings ;  the  more  you  think 
and  hear  and  read,  the  more  mysterious  it  be- 
comes.    And  well  it  may,  well  it  may ! 

A  student  went  to  a  professor  of  theology  not 
long  ago,  and  asked  him  how  long  it  took  him  to 
understand  the  atonement.  He  answered,  all  his 
life.  Thinking  perhaps  there  might  be  some  mis- 
take, the  young  man  went  to  another  professor, 
who  taught  the  very  doctrine  in  his  class.  "  How 
long  did  it  take  you,  sir,"  he  asked,  "  to  under- 
stand the  atonement?"  The  professor  thought  a 
moment,  then  looked  him  in  the  face.  "  Eternity^' 
he  said,  ''Eternity;  and  I  won't  understand  it  then." 

We  have  been  dealing  to-day  with  facts;  we 
need  not  be  distressed  if  we  do  not  understand 
them.  God's  love  —  how  could  we?  God's  for- 
giveness—  how  could  we?  "He  forgiveth  all 
mine  iniquities."  It  is  a  fact.  What  proof  could 
commend  itself  if  God's  fact  will  not  do?  Verify 
the  fact  as  you  may,  find  out  as  much  about  it  as 
you  may;  only  accept  it  —  accept  it  first.  You 
are  keeping  your  life  waiting  while  you  are  find- 
ing out  about  it.  You  are  keeping  your  salvation 
waiting.  And  it  is  better  to  spend  a  year  in  igno- 
rance than  live  a  day  unpardoned.  You  are 
staining  other  lives  while  you  are  waiting  :  your 
influence  is  against  Christ  while  you  are  waiting, 
and  it  is  better  to  spend  your  life  in  ignorance 
than  let  your  influence  be  against  Christ.  Most 
things  in  religion  are  matters  of  simple  faith.  But 
when  we  come  to  the  atonement,  somehow  we  all 


THE  THREE  FACTS  OF  SALVATION    189 

become  rationalists.  We  want  to  see  through  it 
and  understand  it  —  as  if  it  were  finite  hke  our- 
selves, as  if  it  could  ever  be  compassed  by  our 
narrow  minds  —  as  if  God  did  not  know  that  we 
never  could  fathom  it  when  He  said,  "  Believe  it," 
instead  of  "  Understand  it."  We  are  not  ration- 
alists when  we  come  to  the  love  of  God,  or  to 
faith,  or  prayer.  We  do  not  ask  for  a  theory  of 
love  before  we  begin  to  love,  or  a  theory  of  prayer 
before  we  begin  to  pray.  We  just  begin.  Well, 
just  begin  to  believe  in  forgiveness.  When  they 
brought  the  sick  man  once  to  Jesus,  He  just  said, 
"  Man,  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee,"  and  the  man 
just  believed  it.  He  did  not  ask,  "  But  why  should 
you  forgive  me,  and  how  do  you  mean  to  forgive 
me?  and  I  don't  see  any  connection  between  your 
forgiveness  and  my  sin."  No ;  he  took  the  fact. 
**  Immediately  he  rose  up,  and  departed  to  his  own 
house,  glorifying  God."  The  fact  is,  if  we  would 
come  to  Christ  just  now,  we  should  never  ask  any 
questions.  Our  minds  would  be  full  of  Him. 
We  should  be  in  the  region  of  eternal  facts,  and 
we  should  just  believe  them.  At  least,  we  should 
believe  Him  ;  and  He  is  the  Saviour,  the  sum  of 
all  the  facts  of  salvation  —  the  one  Saviour  from 
all  the  facts  of  sin.  If  you  will  not  receive  salva- 
tion as  a  fact,  receive  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  a 
gift  —  we  ask  no  questions  about  a  gift.  Receive 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  a  gift,  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved  from  the  power  and  the  stain  and  the  guilt 
of  sin,  for  His  is  the  power  and  the  glory.     Amen. 


NUMBER   IX 

"What  Is 
Your  Life?" 

James  iv.  14. 

TO-MORROW,  the  first  day  of  a  new  year, 
is  a  day  of  wishes.  To-day,  the  last  day 
of  an  old  year,  is  a  day  of  questions.  To-morrow 
is  a  time  of  anticipation;  to-day  a  time  of  reflec- 
tion. To-morrow  our  thoughts  will  go  away  out 
to  the  coming  opportunities,  and  the  larger  vistas 
which  the  future  is  opening  up  to  even  the  most 
commonplace  of  us.  To-day  our  minds  wander 
among  buried  memories,  and  our  hearts  are  full 
of  self-questioning  thoughts  of  what  our  past  has 
been. 

But  if  to-morrow  is  to  be  a  day  of  hope,  to- 
day must  be  a  day  of  thought.  If  to-morrow  is 
to  be  a  time  of  resolution,  to-day  must  be  a  day 
of  investigation.  And  if  we  were  to  search  the 
Bible  through  for  a  basis  for  this  investigation, 
we  should  nowhere  find  a  better  than  this  ques- 
tion, "  WJiat  is  your  life  f  " 

We  must  notice,  however,  that  life  is  used 
here  in  a  peculiar  sense  —  a  narrow  sense,  some 
would  say.    The  question  does  not  mean,  "  What 


"WHAT   IS   YOUR   LIFE?"  191 

quality  is  your  life?"  "  What  are  you  making 
of  life?"  "How  are  you  getting  on  with  it?" 
"  How  much  higher  is  the  tone  of  it  this  year 
than  last?"  It  has  a  more  limited  reference 
than  this.  It  does  not  refer  so  much  to  quality 
of  life  as  to  quantity  of  life.  It  means,  "  How 
much  life  have  you  got?  "  "  What  value  do  you 
set  upon  your  life?"  "  How  long  do  you  think 
your  life  will  last?"  "How  does  it  compare 
with  eternity?  " 

And  there  are  reasons  which  make  this  form 
of  the  question  particularly  appropriate,  not  only 
to  this  last  day  of  the  year,  but,  apart  altogether 
from  that,  to  the  state  of  much  religious  thought 
upon  the  subject  at  the  present  moment. 

These  reasons  are  mainly  these  two : 

1.  There  is  a  large  school  just  now  who 
utterly  ignore  this  question. 

2.  There  is  a  large  school  who  utterly  spoil  it. 
There  may  be  said  to  be  two  ways  of  looking 

at  life,  each  of  which  finds  favour  just  now  with 
a  wide  circle  of  people  : 

1.  The  theory  that  life  is  everything. 

2.  The  theory  that  life  is  nothing. 
Or,  adding  the  converse  to  these  : 

1.  The  theory  that  life  is  everything  and  eter- 
nity nothing. 

2.  The  theory  that  life  is  nothing  and  eternity 
everything. 

Now,  those  who  hold  the  first  of  these,  object 
to  the  time-view  of  life  altogether.     Now  there 


192        "WHAT  IS  YOUR  LIFE?" 

can  be  no  doubt  that  this  is  the  favourite  of  the 
two.  For  one  thing,  it  is  decidedly  the  fashion- 
able view.  It  is  the  view  culture  takes,  and 
many  thinking  men,  and  many  thoughtful  and 
modern  books.  Life,  these  say,  life  is  the  great 
thing.  We  know  something  about  life.  We  are 
in  it — it  is  pulsating  all  around  us.  We  feel  its 
greatness  and  reality.  But  the  other  does  not 
press  upon  us  in  the  same  way.  It  is  far  off  and 
mystical.  It  takes  a  kind  of  effort  even  to  be- 
lieve it.  Therefore  let  us  keep  to  what  we  know, 
what  we  are  in,  what  we  are  sure  of. 

The  strength  of  this  school  is  in  their  great 
view  of  life ;  their  weakness  and  great  error,  in 
their  little  view  of  time.  Their  enthusiasm  for 
the  quality  of  life  makes  them  rush  to  the  oppo- 
site extreme  and  ignore  its  quantity.  The  thought 
that  life  is  short  has  little  influence  with  them. 
They  simply  refuse  to  let  it  weigh  with  them, 
and  when  pressed  with  thoughts  of  immortality, 
or  time-views  of  human  life,  they  affirm,  with  a 
kind  of  superiority,  that  they  have  too  much  to 
do  with  the  present  to  trouble  themselves  with 
sentimentalisms  about  the  future. 

The  second  view  is  the  more  antiquated,  per- 
haps the  more  illiterate.  Life,  with  it,  is  nothing 
at  all.  It  is  a  bubble,  a  vapour,  a  shadow. 
Eternity  is  the  great  thing.  Eternity  is  the  signi- 
ficant thing.  Eternity  is  the  only  thing.  Life  is 
a  kind  of  unfortunate  preliminary — a  sort  of 
dismal  antechamber,  where  man  must  wait,  and  be 


"WHAT   IS   YOUR   LIFE?'*  193 

content  for  a  little  with  the  view  of  eternity  from 
the  windows.  His  turn  to  go  is  coming;  mean- 
time let  him  fret  through  the  unpleasant  interval 
as  resignedly  as  he  can,  and  pray  God  to  speed 
its  close. 

The  strength  of  this  school  is  that  it  recognises 
time  and  eternity  for  itself.  Its  weakness,  and  its 
great  error,  that  it  refuses  to  think  of  life  and 
spoils  the  thought  of  eternity  for  those  who  do. 
The  first  school  requires  to  be  told  that  life  is 
short ;  this,  so  far  from  having  to  be  told  that  it 
is  short,  have  to  be  told  that  life  is  long  —  for 
life  to  it  is  nothing. 

It  is  clear,  of  course,  that  each  of  these  views 
is  the  natural  recoil  from  the  other.  The  mis- 
take is  that  each  has  recoiled  too  far.  The  life- 
something  theory  cannot  help  recoiling  from  the 
life-nothing  theory;  but  it  need  not  recoil  into 
life-everything.  So  the  eternity-something  theory 
cannot  help  recoiling  from  the  eternity-nothing 
theory ;  but  it  need  not  recoil  into  eternity-every- 
thing. 

It  is  plain,  then,  that  both  these  theories  are 
wrong,  and  yet  not  altogether  wrong.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  truth  in  each  —  so  much,  indeed, 
that  if  the  parts  of  truth  which  each  contains 
were  joined  into  one,  they  would  form  a  whole  — 
the  truth.  And  if  the  sides  were  nearly  equal,  — 
as  many  who  think  life  nothing  as  think  life  every- 
thing, —  there  could  be  nothing  more  useful  than 
to  attempt  to  strike  the  harmony  between.     But 

13 


194         "WHAT   IS   YOUR  LIFE?" 

the  sides  are  not  equal,  and  hence  the  better  ex- 
ercise will  be  to  deal  with  the  side  which  has  the 
truth  the  furthest  in  arrear. 

This,  undoubtedly,  is  the  life-school  —  the  life- 
everything  school.  The  other  is,  comparatively, 
a  minority.  At  least,  those  who  hold  the  ex- 
treme form  of  it  are  a  minority.  It  is  a  more 
obvious  and  striking  truth  that  life  is  something. 
And  it  is  not  difficult  to  convince  the  man  who 
makes  eternity  everything  to  allow  something 
to  life;  but  to  get  the  man  who  makes  life 
everything  to  grant  a  little  to  eternity  is  a  harder 
thing  to  attempt;  for  the  power  of  the  world 
to  come  may  be  yet  unfelt  and  unproved,  and 
the  race  of  life  so  swift  that  the  rival  flight 
of  time  may  still  remain  unseen. 

Besides,  there  are  mainly  two  great  classes 
who  swell  the  ranks  of  the  majority,  who  refuse 
to  think  of  time. 

1.  The  great  busy  working  and  thinking  class, 
who  are  too  careful  of  time  ever  to  think  of  eter- 
nity as  its  successor.  These  have  too  little  time 
to  think  of  time. 

2.  The  great  lazy  worldly  class,  who  are  too 
careless  of  time  ever  to  think  that  it  will  cease. 
These  have  too  much  time  to  think  of  time — so 
much  of  it  that  they  think  there  will  be  always 
much  of  it. 

Now  it  is  to  these  two  classes  that  this  old 
year's  question  comes  home  with  special  power, 
"What  is  your  life?"     And  it  is  no  reason  why 


"WHAT   IS   YOUR   LIFE?"  195 

the  majority  should  decline  to  face  the  question 
that  a  fanatical  minority  have  nauseated  the 
subject  by  the  exaggeration  of  eternity.  For 
if  these  men  suffer  in  their  Hves  by  treating  hfe 
as  a  thing  of  no  importance,  the  other  classes 
certainly  suffer  more  by  exaggerating  life  at  the 
tremendous  expense  of  eternity. 

The  great  objection  to  thinking  about  eternity, 
or,  to  take  the  other  side,  the  brevity  of  life, 
is  that  it  is  not  practical.  The  life-school  pro- 
fesses to  be  eminently  utilitarian.  It  will  have 
nothing  to  do  with  abstractions,  nothing  that 
does  not  directly  concern  life.  Anything  that 
is  outside  the  sphere  of  action  is  of  little  conse- 
quence to  practical  men.  The  members  of  this 
school  feel  themselves  in  the  rush  of  the  world's 
work,  and  it  is  something  to  think  (to  thi?ik) 
of  that.  It  is  something  to  live  in  the  thick 
of  it,  to  yield  to  the  necessities  of  it,  to  share  its 
hopes,  and  calmly  endure  its  discipline  of  care. 
But  when  you  leave  life,  they  protest,  you  are 
away  from  the  present  and  the  real.  You  are 
off  into  poetry  and  sentiment,  and  the  medita- 
tions you  produce  may  be  interesting  for  philoso- 
phers and  dreamers,  but  they  are  not  for  men 
who  take  their  stand  on  the  greatness  of  life 
and  crave  to  be  allowed  to  leave  the  mystical 
alone. 

Now  the  answer  to  that  —  and  it  may  be  thor- 
oughly answered — may  be  given  in  a  word. 
First  of  all,  who  told  you  eternity  was  nothing? 


196        "WHAT  IS   YOUR  LIFE?" 

Who  told  you  it  was  an  unpractical,  unprofitable 
dream?  Who  told  you  to  go  on  with  }/our  work 
and  let  time  and  other  abstractions  alone?  It 
was  certainly  not  God.  God  takes  exactly  the 
opposite  view.  He  is  never  done  insisting  on  tlie 
importance  of  the  question.  "  O  that  they  were 
wise  .  .  .  that  they  would  consider  their  latter 
end  "  —  that  is  what  God  says.  "  Make  me  to 
know  mine  end,  and  the  measure  of  m}^  days 
what  it  is  "  —  that  is  what  David,  the  man  after 
God's  own  heart,  says.  "  Teach  me  to  number 
my  days"  —  that  is  what  Moses,  the  friend  of 
God,  says. 

And  you  will  notice  the  reason  God  gives  for 
thinking  about  these  things.  It  was  enough, 
indeed,  for  Him  to  say  it,  without  any  reason; 
but  He  has  chosen  to  give  us  one.  lJ7ij/  are  we 
to  number  our  days?  That  we  may  apply  our 
hearts  unto  v.'isdom.  T/iat  is  the  reason  for  think- 
ing about  time.  It  is  to  make  us  wise.  Perhaps 
you  have  thought  this  is  merely  a  piece  of  senti- 
ment, a  flower  of  rhetoric  for  the  poet's  lyric,  a 
harmless,  popular  imagination  for  ignorant  people 
who  cannot  discourse  upon  life,  a  dramatic  truth 
to  impress  the  weak  to  prepare  their  narrow  minds 
for  death.  But  no ;  it  is  not  that.  God  never 
uses  sentiment.  And  if  you  think  a  moment, 
you  will  see  that  it  is  not  the  narrow  mind  which 
needs  this  truth,  but  /lis  who  discourses  on  life. 
The  man  who  discourses  most  on  life  should  dis- 
course the  most  on  time.     When  you  discourse 


"WHAT   IS  YOUR   LIFE?"  197 

on  life,  you  plead  that  it  is  in  the  interests  of  life. 
You  despise  the  time  view  as  unpractical  in  the 
interests  of  life  —  in  the  interests  of  the  new  life 
school  who  care  too  much  for  life  to  spend  their 
strength  upon  the  sentiment  of  time.  Ah !  but 
if  you  really  cared  for  life,  this  sentiment  would 
make  you  love  it  but  the  more.  For  time  is  the 
measurement  of  life.  And  all  in  life  must  be 
profoundly  affected  by  its  poor,  scant  quantity. 
Your  life  on  earth  is  a  great  thing,  a  rich  and 
precious  possession.  It  is  trne  that  it  is  full  of 
m.eaning  and  issues  no  man  can  reckon.  But  it 
is  ten  thousand  times  greater  for  the  thought  that 
it  must  cease.  One  of  the  chief  reasons  why  life 
is  so  great  is  just  that  life  is  so  short.  If  we  had 
a  thousand  years  of  it,  it  would  not  be  so  great 
as  if  we  had  only  a  thousand  hours.  It  is  great 
because  it  is  little.  A  man  is  to  be  executed, 
and  the  judge  has  given  him  a  month  to  prepare 
for  death.  One  short  month.  How  rich  every 
hour  of  it  becomes,  how  precious  the  very 
moments  are !  But  suppose  he  has  only  five 
minntes.  Then  how  unspeakably  solemn  !  How 
much  greater  is  the  five  mhmtes  life  than  the 
montJi  life !  Make  eternity  a  month  and  life  five 
minutes — if  such  a  tremendous  exaggeration  of 
life  could  be  conceived.  How  much  greater  does 
it  become  for  being  so  very  small ! 

How  precious  time  is  to  a  short-lived  man !  I 
am  to  die  at  tliirty,  you  at  sixty ;  a  minute  is  twice 
as  dear  to  me,  for  each  minute  is  twice  as  short. 


198         "WHAT   IS   YOUR  LIFE?" 

So  a  day  to  me  is  more  than  a  day  to  Methu- 
selah, for  he  had  many  days,  and  I  but  few.  Oh  ! 
if  we  really  felt  the  dignity  of  life,  we  would  won- 
der no  less  at  its  brevity  than  at  its  dignity.  If 
we  felt  the  greatness  of  life  at  this  moment,  how 
much  keenness  would  this  further  thought  add  to 
it  —  that  we  might  be  dead  before  this  sermon 
was  done !  How  many  things  we  permit  our- 
selves on  the  theory  that  life  is  great  would  be 
most  emphatically  wrong  on  the  theory  that  time 
was  also  great !  How  many  frivolous  things  — 
yes,  how  many  great  things,  even  —  should  we 
have  to  turn  out  this  moment  from  our  lives  for 
just  this  thought,  if  we  believed  it,  that  time  is 
short !  For  there  is  no  room  among  the  crowded 
moments  of  our  life  for  things  which  will  not  live 
when  life  and  time  are  past.  So  no  one  who  does 
not  feel  the  keen  sense  of  time  flying  away  at 
every  moment  with  the  work  he  has  done  and  the 
opportunities  he  has  lost,  can  know  the  true  great- 
ness of  life  and  the  inexpressible  value  of  the  self- 
selected  things  with  which  he  fills  its  brief  and 
narrow  span.  The  thought  of  death  must  change 
at  every  point  the  values  of  the  significant  things 
of  earth  not  less  than  the  thought  of  life,  and  v.'e 
must  ever  feel  the  solemn  relations  given  to  our 
life  and  work  from  the  overwhelming  thought 
that  the  working-life  is  brief, 

A  modern  poet  has  described,  in  strangely  sug- 
gestive words,  the  time  when  first  the  idea  of 
time  and  death  began  to  dawn  upon  this  earth. 


"WHAT   IS   YOUR   LIFE?"  199 

The  scene  is  laid  in  some  Eastern  land,  where  a 
great  colony  had  risen  from  the  offspring  of  Cain, 
the  murderer  of  his  brother.  Cain  knew  what 
death  was.  He  had  seen  it.  But  he  alone,  of 
all  his  scattered  family,  for  he  kept  his  burning 
secret  to  himself.  Cain's  family  grew  and  spread 
throughout  the  land,  but  no  thought  of  death 
came  in  to  check  the  joyous  wastry  and  exuber- 
ance of  life ;  till  one  day,  in  boyish  pastime,  a 
hurled  stone  strikes  Lamech's  son,  and  the  lad 
falls  to  the  earth.  Friends  gather  round  him  as 
he  lies,  and  bring  him  toys  and  playthings  to 
wake  him  from  his  sleep.  But  no  sleep  like  this 
had  ever  come  to  Lamech's  son  before,  and  soft 
entreating  words  bring  no  responsive  sound  to 
the  cold  lips,  or  light  to  the  closed  eyes.  Then 
Cain  comes  forward,  whispering,  "  The  boy  is 
dead,"  and  tells  the  awe-struck  family  of  this 
mystery  of  death.  And  then  the  poet  describes 
the  magic  of  this  word,  how  "  a  new  spirit,  from 
that  hour,  came  o'er  the  house  of  Cain."  How 
time,  once  vague  as  air,  began  to  stir  strange 
terrors  in  the  soul,  and  lend  to  life  a  moment 
which  it  had  not  known  before.  How  even  the 
sunshine  had  a  different  look.  How  "  work 
grew  eager,  and  device  was  born."     How 

"  It  seemed  the  light  was  never  loved  before, 
Now  each  man  said,  '  'T  v/ill  go,  and  come  no  more.' 
No  budding  branch,  no  pebble  from  the  brook, 
No  form,  no  shadow,  but  new  dearness  took 
From  the  one  thought  that  Life  must  have  an  end." 


200        "WHAT   IS   YOUR   LIFE?" 

So  the  thought  that  life  will  be  no  more,  that 
each  day  hved  is  hastening  on  the  day  when  hfe 
itself  must  stop,  makes  every  priceless  hour  of 
ours  a  million  times  more  great,  and  tinges  every 
thought,  and  word,  and  act  with  the  shadow  of 
what  must  be. 

From  all  this,  it  must  now  be  clear  that  the 
man  who  is  really  concerned  to  live  well  must 
possess  himself  continually  of  the  thought  that  he 
is  not  to  live  long.  And  that  it  is  in  the  highest 
interests  of  great  living  to  stimulate  life,  not  to 
paralyse  it,  that  God  asks  us  all  to-day,  "  What  is 
your  life?  " 

But  the  Bible  has  done  more  than  ask  this 
question.  It  has  answered  it.  And  when  the 
Bible  answers  a  question,  it  gives  always  the  best 
answer.  We  could  do  no  better,  therefore,  than 
consult  it  a  little  further  now,  for  it  so  happens 
that  there  are  few  subjects  which  the  Bible  goes 
into  so  thoroughly  as  this  one  —  few  thoughts 
which  rise  more  often  or  more  urgently  to  the 
surface  of  the  great  Bible  lives  than  "  What  is 
your  life?  " 

And,  besides,  there  is  a  peculiarity  in  the  Bible 
answers  which  makes  them  particularly  valuable, 
and  which  has  tended,  more  than  anything  else, 
to  impress  them  profoundly  upon  the  deeper 
spirit  of  every  age.  And  that  peculiarity  is  this, 
that  the  answer  is  never  given  in  hard,  bare  words, 
but  is  presented,  wrapped  up,  as  it  were,  in  some 


"WHAT   IS   YOUR   LIFE?"  201 

figure   of   such    exquisite  beauty,   that  no   mind 
could  refuse  to  give  it  a  place,  were  it  only  for  the 
fineness  of  its  metaphor.     Take,  as  an  example, 
the    answer    which    follows  the   question  in  the 
text,  "  What  is  your  life  ?  "     "  It  is  even  a  vapour, 
that  appeareth  for  a  little  time,  and  then  vanisheth 
away."     Who  could   afford   to   forget  a   thought 
like  that,  when  once   its   beauty  had  struck   root 
within   the   mind?     And   if  God    did  not  rather 
choose  a  few  hard  solid  sentences  of  truth  to  per- 
petuate   an    answer  to  one    of    the    most    solid 
thoughts  of  life,  is  it  not  just  because  He  wanted 
it    to   be   remembered    evermore  —  because    He 
wanted  the  thought  of  the  shortness  and  uncer- 
tainty of  life  to  live  in  every  living  soul,  and  haunt 
the   heart   in    times  when    other   thoughts    were 
passionless    and     dull?       In     childhood,     before 
deeper  thoughts  had   come,  he  would  paint  this 
truth,  in  delicate  tints,  on  every  opening   soul; 
and  in  riper  years,  when  trouble  and  sickness  came 
and    weaned     the    broken    mind    from    sterner 
thoughts,  he  would  have  the  soul  still  furnished 
with  these  ever-preaching  pictures  of  the  frailty 
of  its  life. 

Why  is  it  that  there  is  such  strange  attractive- 
ness to  many  hearts  in  the  Bible  thoughts  of  time, 
and  why  the  peculiar  charm  with  which  the  least 
religious  minds  will  linger  over  the  texts  which 
speak  of  human  life?  It  is  because  God  has 
thrown  an  intensely  living  interest  around  these 
truths,  by  carrying  His  images  of  the  thoughts 


202         "WHAT   IS   YOUR   LIFE?" 

He  most  wanted  remembered  into  the  great 
galleries  of  the  imagination,  where  the  soul  can 
never  tire.  Had  such  thoughts  been  left  to 
reason,  it  would  have  stifled  them  with  its  cold 
touch ;  had  they  been  sunk  in  the  heart,  it  would 
have  consumed  itself  and  them  in  hot  and  burn- 
ing passion;  but  in  the  broad  region  of  the  im- 
agination there  is  expansiveness  enough  for  even 
such  vast  truths  to  wander  at  their  will,  and  power 
and  mystery  enough  to  draw  both  heart  and 
reason  after  them  in  wondering,  trembling  hom- 
age. And  if  no  day  almost  passes  over  our  heads 
without  some  silent  visitation  to  remind  us  what 
we  are,  it  is  because  the  Bible  has  utilised  all  the 
most  common  things  of  life  to  bring  home  these 
lessons  to  the  soul,  so  that  not  a  shadow  on  the 
wall,  or  blade  of  withered  grass,  is  not  full  of 
meanings  which  every  open  heart  can  read. 

Now,  it  is  a  remarkable  fact,  in  this  connection, 
that  the  Bible  has  used  up  almost  every  physical 
image  that  is,  in  any  way,  appropriate  to  the  case. 
And  if  we  were  to  go  over  the  conceptions  of  life 
which  have  been  held  by  great  men  in  succeed- 
ing ages  of  the  world,  we  should  find  scarce 
anything  new,  scarce  anything  the  Bible  had  not 
used  before. 

There  lie  scattered  throughout  this  Book  no 
fewer  than  eighteen  of  these  answers,  and  all  in 
metaphor,  to  the  question,  "  What  is  your  life?" 
And  any  one  who  has  not  before  gathered  them 
together,  cannot  but  be  surprised  at  the  singular 


"WHAT  IS  YOUR   LIFE?"  203 

beauty  and  appropriateness  of  the  collection.  To 
begin  with,  let  us  run  over  their  names.  "  W/iat 
is  your  life  f     It  is 

A  tale  that  is  told.  A  sleep. 

A  pilgrimage.  A  vapour. 

A  swift  post.  A  shadow. 

A  swift  ship.  A  flower. 

A  handbreadth.  A  weaver's  shuttle. 

A  shepherd's  tent  re-  Water  spilt  on  tlie 

moved.  ground. 

A  thread  cut  by  the  Grass. 

weaver.  Wind. 

A  dream.  Nothing. 

Generally  speaking,  the  first  thing  to  strike  one 
about  these  images  is  that  they  are  all  quick  things 
—  there  is  a  suggestion  of  brevity  and  evanescence 
about  them,  and  this  feeling  is  so  strong  that  we 
might  fancy  there  was  only  one  answer  to  the 
question,  What  is  your  life?  namely.  Your  life  is 
short.  But  if  we  look  closer  at  them  for  a  mo- 
ment, shades  of  difference  will  begin  to  appear, 
and  we  shall  find  the  hints  of  other  meanings  as 
great  and  striking,  and  quite  as  necessary  to 
complete  the  conception  of  "  your  life." 

First  of  all,  then,  and  most  in  detail,  tJirce  of 
these  metaphors  give  this  answer:  —  (i)  Your 
life  is  a  very  LITTLE  thing.  We  have  admitted 
that  life  is  a  very  great  thing.  It  is  also  a  very 
little  thing.  Measure  it  by  its  bearing  on  eternity ; 
there  is  no  image  in  God's  universe  to  compare 


204        "WHAT   IS  YOUR   LIFE?" 

with  it  for  majesty  and  dignity.  It  is  a  sublime 
thing  —  Life.  But  measure  it  by  its  bearings 
upon  time,  by  its  results  on  the  world,  on  other 
lives;  there  is  no  image  too  small  to  speak  of  its 
meanness  and  narrowness,  for  it  is  a  little  thing, 
"  Your  life."  It  is  "  a  SHADOW,"  it  is  "  a  SHEP- 
herd's  tent  removed,"  it  is  "  a  TALE  that  is 

TOLD." 

A  Shadow.  It  is  unreal;  it  is  illusory.  It  falls 
across  the  world  without  affecting  it ;  perhaps  it 
only  darkens  it.  Then  it  rises  suddenly,  and  is 
gone.  It  leaves  few  impressions;  and  if  it  could, 
shadow  cannot  act  much  on  other  shadows.  So 
life  at  the  best  is  a  poor,  resultless,  shadowy  thing. 

A  Shepherd's  Tent  Removed.  Just  before  sun- 
set the  slopes  of  the  Eastern  hills  would  be 
dotted  with  Arab  tents.  And  when  night  fell, 
the  traveller  in  these  lands,  as  he  lay  down  to 
rest,  would  see  the  glimmering  of  their  fires  and 
hear  the  noisy  bleating  of  their  flocks.  But  in 
the  morning,  when  he  looked  out,  both  herds  and 
herdsmen  would  be  gone.  Hours  ago,  perhaps, 
the  tents  had  been  struck,  and  the  hills  would  be 
silent  and  lonely  as  if  no  foot  had  ever  stirred 
the  dew  on  their  slopes  before.  So  man,  the 
Bible  says,  traces  out  his  trackless  path  through 
life.  He  is  here  to-day,  in  the  noise  of  the 
world's  labour ;  to-morrow,  when  you  look  for 
him,  he  is  gone.  Through  the  night  sometime 
his  frail  tent  has  been  struck,  and  his  place  is 
empty  and  still.     His  life  has  left  no  track  to  tell 


"WHAT   IS   YOUR   LIFE?"  205 

that  it  was  there  —  except  a  burnt-out  fire  to  show 
that  there  a  shepherd's  tent  had  been  removed. 

But  the  best  of  these  images  is  the  third  — 
A  tale  that  is  told.  Some  think  this  means  a 
thought  or  meditation.  "  Your  life  is  a  medita- 
tion," as  the  margin  has  it.  But  as  the  psalm  in 
which  the  words  occur  was  written  by  Moses,  it 
is  probable  that  the  obvious  meaning  of  the  words 
is  the  correct  one.  In  their  journeyings  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  would  have  many  weary,  unoccu- 
pied hours.  There  would  be  no  books  to  relieve 
the  monotony,  and  no  doubt  the  people  would 
attempt  to  beguile  the  tedious  marches,  and  the 
long  hours  by  the  camp  fires  at  night,  with  the 
familiar  Oriental  custom  of  narrating  personal 
adventures  in  the  form  of  stories  or  tales.  Night 
after  night,  as  this  went  on,  the  different  tales  of 
the  story-tellers  would  begin  to  get  mixed,  then 
to  confuse  their  audience,  perhaps  then  even  to 
weary  them.  The  first  tale,  which  made  a  great 
impression  once,  would  lose  its  power,  and  the 
second,  which  was  thought  more  wonderful  still, 
would  be  distanced  by  the  third.  Then  the  third 
would  be  forgotten,  and  the  fourth  and  the  fifth ; 
till  all  would  be  forgotten,  and  last  night's  tale 
would  be  the  vivid  picture  in  every  mind  to-day. 
But  the  story-teller  could  know  that  to-night  an- 
other would  have  his  turn,  and  sit  in  the  place  of 
honour,  and  tell  a  more  vivid  tale  than  he  told 
the  Hight  before,  and  his  would  be  forgotten  and 
ignored. 


206        "WHAT   IS   YOUR  LIFE?" 

So  we  do  spend  our  years  as  a  tale  that  is  told. 
The  dead  have  told  their  tales ;  they  have  said 
their  say.  They  thought  we  would  remember 
what  they  did  and  said.  But,  no ;  they  are  for- 
gotten. They  have  become  old  stories  now. 
And  our  turn  will  come  —  our  turn  to  stop; 
our  turn  for  the  Angel  of  Death  to  close  the 
chapter  of  our  life,  whether  it  be  a  novel  or  a 
psalm,  and  write  the  universal  "  Finis "  at  the 
end.  What  though  a  sentence  here  and  there 
may  linger  for  a  few  brief  years  to  find  a  place 
—  Vv'ithout  quotation  marks  —  in  some  tale  better 
told,  the  tale  itself  must  close  and  be  forgotten, 
like  the  rest,  an  ill-told,  ill-heard,  and  ill-remem- 
bered tale. 

There  is,  next,  and  briefly,  another  set  of  meta- 
phors which  bring  out  the  more  common  answer 
(which,  therefore,  it  will  only  be  necessary  to 
name),  that  (2)  Life  is  a  short  thing.  Short- 
ness, of  course,  is  different  from  littleness.  A 
lightning  flash  is  short,  but  not  little.  But  life  is 
both  short  and  little.  And  there  are  two  ways  in 
which  life  is  short:  (i)  Measured  by  growth. 
(2)  Measured  by  minutes.  Those  who  are  grow- 
ing must  feel  time  shortest.  They  have  started 
with  the  wrecks  of  being  to  fashion  themselves 
into  men,  and  life  is  all  too  short  to  do  it  in. 
Therefore  they  work  out  their  salvation  with  fear 
and  trembling  —  fearful  lest  death  should  come, 
trembling  lest  life  should  stop  before  it  was 
worked  out.     But  they  who  measure  life   by  its 


"WHAT  IS   YOUR   LIFE?"  207 

minutes  have  nothing  to  say  of  its  brevity;  for 
their  purpose  it  is  long  enough.  It  is  not  more 
time  they  want,  but  "  the  more  capacious  soul," 
as  some  one  says,  "  to  flow  through  every  pore 
of  the  little  that  they  have."  But  there  is  no  dis- 
tinction in  the  Bible  treatment  of  the  two.  Time 
is  the  same  to  all.  It  is  a  haiidbreadth  ;  a  weav- 
er's shuttle ;  nothing ;  "  an  eagle  hasting  to  the 
prey" ;  a  swift  post ;  a  swift  ship.  David  used 
to  pray  to  God  to  give  him  a  measure  for  his 
days.  Well,  he  got  it.  It  was  the  breadth  of  his 
hand.  We  carry  about  with  us  continually  the 
measure  of  our  days.  ''  My  days  are  as  an 
handbreadth." 

The  others  are  familiar  symbols  enough.  The 
weaver's  shuttle  —  is  it  the  monotony,  the  same- 
ness, the  constant  repetition  of  life?  Rather 
the  quickness,  the  rapid  flight  through  the  thin 
web  of  time ;  the  shuttle  being  then,  perhaps, 
the  quickest  image  men  had. 

Then  those  in  the  country  in  early  times  could 
know  nothing  more  rapid  or  sudden  than  the 
swoop  of  an  eagle  on  its  prey;  then,  by  the  sea- 
side, nothing  more  fleet  than  the  swift  sailing 
away  of  a  ship  driven  by  the  unseen  wind,  or  the 
hasty  arrival  of  the  "swift  post"  or  messenger 
with  tidings  from  afar.  And  it  was  not  for  want 
of  opportunity  if  they  did  not  learn  their  lessons 
well  in  these  more  simple  days,  when  the  few 
changes  life  had  were  each  thus  stamped  with 
the  thought  of  the  great  change  into  eternity. 


208         "WHAT   IS  YOUR   LIFE?" 

The  next  thought  is  so  closely  allied  to  this 
that  one  can  scarcely  separate  it  but  for  conven- 
ience. It  suggests  the  idea  of  transitoriness. 
Your  life  is  a  transitory  thing.  It  is  a  thing  of 
change.  There  is  no  endurance  in  it,  no  set- 
tling down  in  it,  no  real  home  to  it  here.  There- 
fore God  calls  it  a  pilgrimage  —  a  passing  on  to 
a  something  that  is  to  be.  Still  closely  allied 
to  this,  too,  is  the  simile  of  the  text  —  that  life 
is  a  vapour.  It  means  there  is  no  real  substance 
in  it.  It  is  a  going  and  coming  for  a  moment, 
then  a  passing  away  for  ever.  And  then  there 
are  two  or  three  metaphors  which  advance  this 
idea  still  further.  In  their  hands  life  passes 
from  transitoriness  into  mystery.  This  life  of 
ours,  they  show  us,  is  a  mysterious  tJiing.  And 
it  is  true  life  is  a  mysterious  thing.  We  do  not 
understand  life  —  why  it  should  begin,  why  it 
should  end.  There  is  some  meaning  in  it  some- 
where that  has  baffled  every  search ;  some  mean- 
ing beyond,  some  more  real  state  than  itself. 
So  the  Bible  calls  it  a  sleep,  a  dream,  the  wind. 
No  book  but  the  Bible  could  have  called  our  life 
a  sleep.  The  great  book  of  the  Greeks  has  called 
death  a  sleep :  — 

"Death's  twin-brother,  Sleep." 

But  the  Bible  has  the  profounder  thought. 
Life  is  the  sleep.  Death  is  but  the  waking. 
And  the  great  poets  and  philosophers  of  the 
world  since  have   found  no   deeper  thought  of 


"WHAT   IS   YOUR  LIFE?"  209 

life  than  this;  and  the  greatest  of  them  all  has 
used  the  very  word  our  little  life  is  "rounded 
with  a  sleep."  It  seems  to  have  been  a  sooth- 
ing thought  to  them,  and  it  may  be  a  sanctifying 
thought  to  us  that  this  life  is  not  the  end;  and 
therefore  it  is  a  wise  thing  to  turn  round  some- 
times in  our  sleep,  and  think  how  there  is  more 
beyond  than  dreams. 

There  are  but  two  thoughts  more  to  bring  our 
questions  to  a  close,  and  they  will  add  a  practical 
interest  to  what  has  gone  before. 

What  is  your  life.'' 

I.  Life  is  an  irrevocable  thing.  We  have  just 
finished  an  irrevocable  year.  As  we  look  back 
upon  it,  every  thought  and  word  and  act  of  it  is 
there  in  its  place  just  as  we  left  it.  There  are 
all  the  Sabbaths  in  their  places,  and  all  the  well- 
spent  days  or  ill-spent  days  between.  There  is 
every  sin  and  every  wish  and  every  look  still  in 
its  own  exact  surroundings,  each  under  its  own 
day  of  the  month,  at  the  precise  moment  of  the 
day  it  happened.  We  are  leaving  it  all  at  twelve 
o'clock  to-night;  but,  remember,  we  leave  it 
exactly  as  it  stands.  No  single  hour  of  it  can 
be  changed  now,  no  smallest  wish  can  be  re- 
called, no  angry  word  taken  back.  It  is  fixed, 
steadfast,  irrevocable — 'Stereotyped  for  ever  on 
the  past  plates  of  eternity.  Our  book  has  a 
wonderful  metaphor  for  this  — ■  "water  spilt  upon 
the  ground,  which  cannot  be  gathered  up  again." 
No,    we  cannot  gather  up  these  days   and  put 

14 


210  ''WHAT   IS  YOUR   LIFE?" 

them  back  into  Time's  breaking  urn,  and  live 
them  over  again.  They  are  spilt  upon  the 
ground,  and  the  great  stream  of  Time  has  sucked 
them  up,  and  cast  them  already  on  the  eternal 
shores  among  all  bygone  years,  and  there  they 
bide  till  God's  time  comes,  and  they  come  back, 
one  by  one,  in  order  as  they  went,  to  meet  us 
again  and  Him  before  the  Judgment  Bar.  To- 
morrow is  to  be  a  time  of  resolution,  is  it.'' 
Well,  let  this  resolution  take  the  foremost  place 
of  all,  that,  when  this  day  of  next  year  comes, 
and  we  look  once  more  at  the  irrevocable  past, 
there  shall  be  fewer  things  to  wish  undone,  or 
words  to  wish  unsaid,  and  more  spots  where 
memory  shall  love  to  linger  still,  more  steps 
which,  when  retraced  in  thought,  will  fill  the 
heart  with  praise. 

Lastly,  life  is  more  than  an  irrevocable  thing. 
It  is  an  U7icertain  thing  —  so  certainly  uncertain, 
that  it  is  certain  we  shall  not  all  be  here  to  see 
this  next  year  close.  What  means  the  grim 
image  in  the  Bible  of  the  weaver's  thread  sus- 
pended in  the  air,  and  the  blade  of  the  lifted 
knife  just  touching  it  with  its  edge.-*  It  means 
that  you  must  die.  The  thread  of  your  life  is  to 
be  cut.  The  knife  may  be  lifted  now,  the  keen 
blade  just  touching  it;  one  pressure  of  the  hand, 
and  it  is  done.  One  half,  left  unfinished,  still 
hanging  to  the  past  —  the  other,  dropped  noise- 
lessly into  eternity.  Oh,  life  is  an  abruptly  clos- 
ing thing!     Is  it  not  as  grass?     In  the  morning, 


"WHAT  IS  YOUR  LIFE?"  211 

it  groweth  up  and  flourisheth;  in  the  evening, 
it  is  cut  down  and  withereth.  Is  your  life  ready 
for  the  swiftly  falling  knife,  for  the  Reaper  who 
stands  at  your  door?  Have  you  heard  that  there 
is  another  life  —  a  life  which  cannot  die,  a  life 
which,  linked  to  your  life,  will  make  the  past 
still  bright  with  pardon  and  the  future  rich  with 
hope  ?     This  life  is  in  His  Son.  *' 


NUMBER  X 

Marvel  Not 

"  Marvel  not  that  I  said  unto  thee,  Ye  must  be  born 
again.'''' —  John  iii.  7, 

EVERY  man  comes  into  the  world  wrapped 
in  an  atmosphere  of  wonder  —  an  atmos- 
phere from  which  his  whole  after-life  is  a  pro- 
longed effort  to  escape.  The  moment  he  opens 
his  eyes  this  sense  of  wonder  is  upon  him,  and 
it  never  leaves  him  till  he  closes  them  on  the 
greatest  wonder  —  Death.  Between  these  won- 
ders—  the  first  awaking  and  the  last  sleep  — 
his  life  is  spent  —  itself  a  long-drawn  breath  of 
mystery. 

This  sense  of  wonder  is  not  an  evil  thing, 
although  it  is  a  thing  to  escape  from.  It  is  one 
of  God's  earliest  gifts,  and  one  of  God's  best 
gifts ;  but  its  usefulness  to  childhood  or  to  man- 
hood depends  on  the  mind  escaping  from  wonder 
into  something  else  —  on  its  passing  out  from 
wonder  into  knowledge.  Hence  God  has  made 
the  desire  to  escape  as  natural  to  us  as  the  desire 
to  wonder. 

Every  one  has  been  struck  with  the  wonder- 
ment of  a  little  child;  but  its  desire  to  escape 


MARVEL  NOT  213 

out  of  wonderment  is  a  more  marvellous  thing. 
Its  wonder  becomes  to  it  a  constant  and  secret 
craving  for  an  entrance  into  the  rest  of  informa- 
tion and  fact.  Its  eager  questionings,  its  impa- 
tience of  its  own  ignorance,  its  insatiable  requests 
for  knowledge,  these  are  alike  the  symptoms  of 
its  wonder  and  the  evidences  of  its  efforts  to 
escape.  And  although,  in  adult  life,  the  devel- 
oped man  is  too  cautious  or  too  proud  to  display 
his  wonder  like  the  child,  it  is  there  in  its  thin 
disguise  as  inquiry,  or  investigation,  or  doubt. 
And  there  is  no  more  exuberant  moment  in  a 
man's  life  than  when  this  wonder  works  until  it 
passes  into  truth,  when  reason  flashes  a  sudden 
light  into  a  groping  mind,  and  knowledge  whis- 
pers, "  Marvel  not  !  " 

Of  all  the  subjects  which  men  have  found  it 
convenient  to  banish  into  these  regions  of  the 
unknowable,  none  suffer  so  frequently  as  this  of 
the  being  born  again.  The  elements  of  mys- 
tery which  are  supposed  to  cluster  about  it  are 
reckoned  an  ample  excuse  for  even  the  most 
intelligent  minds  not  trying  to  understand  it,  and 
more  than  a  justification  of  any  one  who  makes 
the  attempt  and  fails. 

The  famous  Rabbi,  indeed,  who  was  honoured 
with  all  this  immortal  discourse  on  regeneration 
is  a  case  in  point.  He  was  just  on  the  verge 
of  losing  himself  in  this  most  treasonable  de- 
spair. Never  was  man  more  puzzled  than  Nico- 
demus    at   the    initial    statement    of   this    truth. 


214  MARVEL  NOT 

Never  was  man's  sense  of  wonder  more  pro- 
foundly excited,  never  more  in  danger  of  losing 
icself  in  the  mazes  of  mystery,  never  nearer 
taking  the  easy  escape  by  drowning  itself  in 
ignorance  than  when  Jesus  rallied  the  escaping 
faculties  of  the  Jewish  ruler  by  the  message, 
"  Marvel  not!'  The  background  working  of  that 
mind  during  its  strange  night  interview  with 
Christ  is  full  of  interest  and  lesson,  and  what 
we  do  know  is  full  of  suggestion  and  meaning. 
Twice  already  during  the  conversation  had  the 
great  Teacher  said  in  substance,  "  Ye  must  be 
born  again."  And  one  of  the  strongest  intellects 
of  its  time  stood  literally  petrified  before  the 
words.  Nicodemus  first  tries  to  summon  cour- 
age and  frame  a  wondering  question  in  reply: 
"  How  can  a  man  be  born  when  he  is  old  ?  " 
and  less  a  question,  perhaps,  than  a  soliloquy 
of  his  own.  He  has  heard  the  great  Teacher's 
statement,  and  he  thinks  upon  it  aloud,  turning 
it  over  in  his  calm  Hebrew  mind  till  his  very 
question  returns  upon  himself  and  plunges  him 
in  deeper  wonderment  than  before:  "  How  can 
a  man  be  born  again  when  he  is  old  ?  " 

Next  time  he  will  venture  no  remark,  and  the 
Teacher's  words  fall  uninterrupted  on  the  puzzled 
scholar's  ear :  "  Except  a  man  be  born  again, 
he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God."  He  has 
given  him  the  key  to  it.  But  Nicodemus  sees 
it  not.  He  seems  to  have  plunged  into  a 
dream.     His  reverie  has  deepened  till  he  stands 


MARVEL  NOT  215 

absorbed  in  thought,  with  down-turned  eyes, 
before  his  Master.  Jesus  stands  by  in  silence 
and  reads  the  wonder  and  perplexity  in  the 
gathering  blackness  of  his  brow.  Nicodemus  is 
despairing,  perhaps.  He  is  going  to  give  it 
up.  He  is  utterly  baffled  with  the  strange  turn 
the  conversation  has  taken.  There  is  no  satis- 
faction to  be  got  from  this  clandestine  meeting 
after  all,  and  puzzled,  and  beaten,  and  crest- 
fallen, he  prepares  to  take  his  leave.  But  Jesus 
will  not  let  the  Divine  senseof  wonder  be  aroused 
to  end  like  this.  It  must  end  in  knowledge,  not 
in  ignominy.  It  must  escape  into  spiritual  truth, 
not  into  intellectual  mystery.  So  He  says, 
"  Wonder  not ;  Marvel  not.  There  is  nothing 
so  very  mysterious  that  I  cannot  make  you 
know.  You  will  understand  it  all  if  you  come 
and  think  of  it.  Ye  need  not  marvel  that  I  said 
unto  thee,  '  Ye  must  be  born  again.'  " 

Thus  Jesus  saved  Nicodemus  from  relapsing 
into  ignorance  of  the  greatest  truth  the  world  had 
known  till  then,  or  lulling  his  wonder  to  sleep  for 
ever  in  mystery  or  despair. 

Now  for  the  sake  of  those  of  us  who  have 
been  tempted  to  pause  —  where  Nicodemus  so 
nearly  lost  himself  —  on  the  threshold  of  this 
truth :  for  the  sake  of  those  of  us  who  have  almost 
felt  drawn  into  the  intellectual  sin  of  drowning 
our  wonder  at  this  truth  in  despair  of  it,  let  us  ask 
ourselves  very  shortly  why  Christ  said,  "  Marvel 
not."     And  it  may  be  convenient  in  following  up 


2i6  MARVEL   NOT 

the  subject  from  this  side  in  a  few  words  to  di- 
vide the  answer  into  three  short  heads. 

I.  "  Marvel  not " —  as  if  it  were  unintelligible.^  ^^^I'**} 

II.  "  Marvel  not"  —  as  if  it  were  impossible. 

III.  "Marvel  not"  —  as  if  it  were  unnecessary. 
To  begin  with  the  first  of  these :  — 

I.  "  Marvel  not  "  —  as  if  it  were  unintelligible. 
.  There  is  nothing  more  unintelligible  in  the  world 
than  the  Jiow  a  soul  is  born  again.  There  is 
nothing  more  intelligible  than  that  it  is.  We 
can  understand  the  fact,  however,  without  neces- 
sarily understanding  the  act.  The  act  of  being 
born  again  is  as  mysterious  as  God.  All  the 
complaints  which  have  been  showered  upon  this 
doctrine  have  referred  to  the  act — the  act  with 
which  we  have  really  nothing  to  do,  which  is  a 
process  of  God,  the  agency,  the  unseen  wind  of 
the  Spirit,  and  which  Jesus  Himself  has  expressly 
warned  us  not  to  expect  to  understand.  "  TJioii 
canst  not  tell,"  He  said,  "  whence  it  cometh  or 
whither  it  goeth." 

But  there  is  nothing  to  frighten  search  in  this. 
For  precisely  the  same  kind  of  mystery  hangs 
over  every  process  of  nature  and  life.  We  do 
not  understand  the  influence  of  sunshine  on  the 
leaves  of  a  flower  at  this  spring-time  any  more 
than  we  do  the  mysterious  budding  of  spiritual 
life  within  the  soul.  Botany  is  a  science  for  all 
that. 

We  do  not  give  up  the  study  of  chemistry 
as  hopeless  because  we  fail  to  comprehend  the 


MARVEL  NOT  217 

unseen  laws  which  guide  the  delicate  actions  and 
reactions  of  matter.  Nor  do  we  disbelieve  in  the 
influence  of  food  on  the  vital  frame  because  no 
man  has  found  the  point  exactly  at  which  it 
passes  from  dead  nourishment  into  life.  We  do 
not  avoid  the  subject  of  electricity  because  elec- 
tricity is  a  mystery,  or  heat  because  we  cannot 
see  heat,  or  meteorology  because  we  cannot  see 
the  wind.  Marvel  not  then,  from  the  analogy  of 
physical  nature,  if,  concerning  this  spirit  of  re- 
generation, we  cannot  tell  whence  it  cometh  and 
whither  it  goeth.  It  is  not  on  that  account  unin- 
telligible that  a  man  should  be  born  again. 

If  we  care  again  to  take  the  analogy  from  the 
moral  and  intellectual  nature,  the  same  may  be 
said  with  even  greater  emphasis. 

The  essence  of  regeneration  is  a  change  from 
one  state  to  another  —  from  an  old  life  to  a  new 
one.  Spiritually,  its  manifestation  is  in  hating 
things  once  loved,  or  loving  things  once  hated. 
God  is  no  longer  avoided,  but  worshipped ;  Christ 
no  longer  despised,  but  trusted. 

Now,  intellectually,  changes  at  least  in  some 
way  similar  are  happening  every  day.  You  rose 
up  yesterday,  bitterly  opposed,  let  us  say,  to  such 
and  such  a  scheme.  You  were  so  strong  in  your 
opinion  that  nothing  would  ever  shake  you.  You 
would  7ievcr  change,  you  said  —  could  not.  But 
you  met  a  friend,  who  began  to  talk  with  you 
about  it.  You  listened,  then  wavered,  then  capitu- 
lated.    You  allowed  yourself  to  be  talked  round, 


2i8  MARVEL  NOT 

as  you  expressed  it.  You  were  converted  to  the 
other  side.  And  in  the  evening  your  change  of 
mind  was  so  complete  that  you  were  htcrally  born 
again —  you  were  hterahy  another  man  ;  you  were 
in  a  new  world  of  ideas,  of  interests,  of  hopes,  with 
all  the  old  dislikes  in  that  special  connection  re- 
versed, and  the  old  loves  turned  into  hates. 

Something  like  this  goes  on,  only  with  a  higher 
agency,  in  the  regeneration  of  the  soul.  Hence  it 
is  called  by  similar  names  a  change  of  heart,  or  a 
tmniing  round  or  a  conversion  to  the  other  side. 
And  just  as  talking  round  will  change  a  man's 
opinion  or  convert  him  intellectually,  so  turning 
round  by  the  Spirit  of  God  will  change  his  heart 
or  convert  him  spiritually.  When  you  are  told, 
therefore,  that  your  heart  may  be  changed  by  the 
Spirit,  even  as  your  mind  was  changed  by  your 
friend,  marvel  not,  as  if  it  were  unintelligible,  that 
ye  may  be  born  again.  What  a  few  hours'  con- 
versation could  do  in  making  you  love  the  side 
you  hated,  and  hate  the  side  you  loved.  Marvel 
not  at  what  more  the  power  of  God  could  do  in 
turning  round  your  being  from  the  old  love  to  the 
new.  And  one  might  even  press  the  analogy  a 
httle  further,  and  add,  if  a  few  minutes'  conversa- 
tion with  a  fellow-man  overturned  the  stubborn 
mountain  of  your  mind,  how  much  more  should 
a  few  minutes'  conversation  with  Christ,  such  as 
Nicodemus  had,  and  which  overthrew  his  strong- 
est Messianic  views,  and  changed  the  current  of 
his  life  for  ever  from  that  hour,  how  much  more 


MARVEL  NOT  219 

should  it  change  yours  the  moment  it  touched 
His?  But  more  than  that.  To  Nicodemus,  in- 
deed, even  the  conception  itself  of  being  born 
again  should  have  seemed  no  mystery.  It  was 
already  a  familiar  thought  in  another  sense  to 
every  Jewish  heart  — ■  nothing  more  nor  less,  in- 
deed, than  one  of  the  common  political  phrases 
of  the  day.  The  custom  with  a  foreigner  who 
came  to  reside  in  a  Jewish  town  in  these  times 
was  to  regard  him  as  unclean.  He  was  held  at 
arms'  length ;  he  was  a  man  of  different  caste, 
the  Jew  had  no  dealings  with  the  Samaritan.  But 
if  he  wished  to  leave  his  gods  and  share  the  re- 
ligious hopes  and  civil  privileges  of  the  Jews, 
there  was  one  way  out  of  the  old  state  into  the 
new  —  just  one  way  —  he  must  be  born  again. 
He  was  baptised  with  water,  and  passed  through 
certain  other  rights,  till  finally  reckoned  clean, 
when  he  became  as  truly  one  of  the  chosen  peo- 
ple as  if  he  had  been  the  lineal  son  of  Abraham. 
And  the  process  of  initiation  from  the  Gentile 
world  into  the  kingdom  of  the  Jew  was  called  a 
regeneration,  or  a  being  born  again.  There  was 
nothing,  therefore,  in  the  thoughtful  considera- 
tion of  the  new  birth  —  in  the  higher  sense  —  for 
the  Jew  to  marvel  at.  "  Art  thou  a  master  in 
Israel,"  Jesus  might  well  ask,  "  and  understandest 
not  these  things?"  A  Master  in  Israel  stum- 
bling at  an  every-day  illustration,  marvelling  as  if 
it  were  unintelligible !  "  Marvel  not  that  I  said 
unto  thee,  Ye  must  be  born  again."     What  the 


220  MARVEL  NOT 

Jews  did  to  a  stranger  in  admitting  him  to  their 
kingdom  corresponds  exactly  with  what  we  do  in 
our  process  of  naturalisation. 

Naturalisation  —  spiritualisation  if  we  would 
be  exactly  accurate  —  is  the  idea,  then,  expressed 
in  the  "Born  again"  of  Christ:  and  when  we 
trace  the  expression  back  to  its  setting  in  Jewish 
politics,  it  yields  the  beautiful  conception  that 
God  calls  man  —  the  foreigner,  the  stranger,  the 
wanderer — to  forsake  the  far  country,  and  hav- 
ing been  purified  by  initiatory  rites  from  all  un- 
cleanness,  to  be  translated  into  the  kingdom  of 
His  dear  Son.  And  though  there  may  be,  in- 
deed, reasons  why  we  should  be  so  slow  to  under- 
stand it,  and  regions  of  rightful  wonder  in  the 
deeper  workings  of  the  thought  which  we  have 
not  yet  explored,  there  is  at  least  this  much  clear, 
that  we  need  not  marvel  as  if  it  were  unintelligible. 

II.  In  a  word  or  two,  marvel  not,  as  if  it  were 
impossible.  There  is  a  name  for  God  which  men, 
in  these  days,  have  many  temptations  to  forget 

—  God  the  Creator  of  heaven  and  earth.  It  was 
the  name,  perhaps,  by  which  we  first  knew   God 

—  God  had  made  our  earth,  our  house ;  God 
had  made  us.  He  was  our  Creator  —  God.  We 
thought  God  could  make  anything  then,  or  do 
anything,  or  do  everything.  But  we  lost  our 
happy,  early  childhood's  faith ;  and  now  we  won- 
der what  things  God  can  do,  as  if  there  were 
many  things  He  could  not. 

But  there  is  one  thing  we  have  little  difficulty 


MARVEL  NOT  221 

in  always  referring  to  the  creating  hand  of  God  — 
life.  No  one  has  ever  made  life  but  God.  We 
call  Him  the  author  of  life,  and  the  author  of  life 
is  a  vvondrously  fertile  author.  He  makes  much 
life  —  life  in  vast  abundance.  There  is  nothing  so 
striking  in  nature  as  the  prodigality  —  the  almost 
reckless  prodigality  —  of  life.  It  seems  as  if  God 
delighted  Himself  in  life.  So  the  world  is  filled 
with  it.  In  the  woods,  in  the  air,  in  the  ocean- 
bed,  everywhere  teeming  life,  superabundance  of 
life,  which  God  has  made. 

Well,  if  God  can  give  life,  He  can  surely  add 
life.  Regeneration  is  nothing  in  principle  but 
the  adding  of  more  life.  It  is  God  adding  life  to 
life  —  more  life  to  a  man  who  has  some  life. 
The  man  has  life  which  God  gave  him  once;  but 
part  of  him  —  the  best  part  of  him  —  is  dead. 
His  soul  is  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins.  God 
touches  this,  and  it  lives.  Even  as  the  body  was 
dead  and  God  breathed  upon  it  till  it  lived,  so 
God  will  breathe  upon  the  soul,  and  more  life, 
and  better  life,  will  come. 

So  there  is  nothing  impossible  in  being  born 
again,  any  more  than  there  is  the  impossible  in 
being  born  at  all.  What  did  Jesus  Christ  come 
into  the  world  for?  To  give  life,  He  said;  even 
more  abundant  life.  And  Christ  giving  life,  that 
is  regeneration.  It  was  not  more  knowledge 
Nicodemus  wanted,  though  he  thought  so,  but 
more  life ;  and  the  best  proof  that  life  was  pos- 
sible  was  that  life   was    granted.     So   the    best 


222  MARVEL  NOT 

proof  of  Christianity  is  a  Christian;  the  best 
proof  of  regeneration  is  a  man  who  has  been 
regenerated.  Can  a  man  be  born  again  when 
he  is  old  ?  Certainly.  For  it  has  been  done. 
Think  of  Bunyan  the  sinner  and  Bunyan  the 
saint;  think  of  Newton  the  miscreant  and 
Newton  the  missionary;  think  of  Paul  the  per- 
secutor and  Paul  the  apostle ;  and  marvel  not,  as 
if  it  were  impossible  that  a  man  should  be  born 
again. 

III.  Marvel  not  —  as  if  it  were  unnecessary. 
Regeneration  is  more  than  intelligible  and  pos- 
sible —  it  is  necessary  to  enter  the  kingdom  of 
God.  "  Except  a  man  be  born  again,  he  cannot 
see  the  kingdom  of  God."  He  says  it  is  neces- 
sary. A  man  cannot  sec  the  kingdom  of  God 
except  he  be  born  again.  He  cannot  only  not 
enter  it;  Jesus  says  he  cannot  see  it.  It  is 
actually  invisible  to  him.  This  is  why  the  world 
says  of  religion,  "  We  do  not  understand  it ;  we 
do  not  make  it  out ;  we  do  not  see  it."  No,  of 
course  they  do  not  see  it;  they  cannot  see  it; 
first,  it  is  necessary  to  be  born  again. 

When  men  come  into  the  world,  they  are  born 
outside  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  they  cannot 
see  into  it.  They  may  go  round  and  round  it, 
and  examine  it  from  the  outside,  and  pass  an 
opinion  on  it.  But  they  are  no  judges.  They 
are  not  seeing  what  they  are  speaking  about. 
For  that  which  is  born  of  spirit  is  spirit,  that 
which  is  born  of  flesh  \s  flesh  ;  and  they  can  only 


MARVEL  NOT  223 

give  a  criticism  which  is  material  on  a  thing 
which  is  spiritual.  Therefore  the  critical  value 
of  a  worldly  man's  opinion  on  religious  matters 
is  nothing.  He  is  open  to  an  objection  which 
makes  his  opinion  simply  ludicrous  —  he  is  talk- 
ing about  a  thing  which  he  has  never  seen.  So 
far  as  one's  experience  of  religion  goes,  regen- 
eration makes  all  the  difference.  It  is  as  if  some 
one  had  been  standing  outside  some  great  ca- 
thedral. He  has  heard  that  its  windows  are 
of  stained  glass  and  exceeding  beautiful.  He 
walks  all  round  it  and  sees  nothing  but  dull, 
unmeaning  spaces  —  an  iron  grating  over  each, 
to  intensify  the  gloom  that  seems  to  reign  within. 
There  is  nothing  worth  seeing  there,  but  every- 
thing to  repel.  But  let  him  go  in.  Let  him  see 
things  from  the  mside.  And  his  eye  is  dazzled 
with  the  gorgeous  play  of  colours  ;  and  the  mir- 
acles and  the  parables  are  glowing  upon  the 
glass;  and  the  figure  of  Jesus  is  there,  and  the 
story  of  His  love  is  told  on  every  pane:  and 
there  are  choirs  of  angels,  and  cherubimi  and 
seraphim,  and  an  altar  where,  in  light  v.'hich  is 
inaccessible,  is  God. 

So  let  a  man  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
—  let  a  man  be  born  again  and  enter  —  and  he 
will  SEE  the  kingdom  of  God.  He  will  see  the 
miracles  and  the  parables  which  were  meaning- 
less, colourless  once;  he  will  see  the  story  of  the 
Cross,  which  was  a  v/eariness  and  an  offence ;  he 
will  see  the  person  of  Christ  and  the  King  in  His 


224  MARVEL  NOT 

beauty,  and  beholding  as  in  a  glass  the  glory  of 
the  only  begotten,  shall  be  changed  into  the  same 
image  from  glory  to  glory.  Marvel  not  if  it  is 
necessary,  to  see  all  this,  that  he  must  be  born 
again. 

Within  this  great  world  there  are  a  number  of 
little  worlds,  to  which  entrance  is  only  attainable 
by  birth.  There  is  the  intellectual  world,  for  in- 
stance, which  requires  the  birth  of  brains;  and 
the  artistic  world,  which  requires  the  birth  of 
taste ;  and  the  dramatic  world,  which  requires  the 
birth  of  talent ;  and  the  musical  world,  which 
requires  the  gift  of  harmony  and  ear.  A  man 
cannot  enter  the  intellectual  world  except  he  have 
brains,  or  the  artistic  v/orld  except  he  have  taste. 
And  he  cannot  make  or  find  brains  or  taste. 
They  must  be  born  in  him.  A  man  cannot  make 
a  poetical  mind  for  himself.  It  must  be  created 
in  him.  Hence  "  the  poet  is  born  —  not  made,'' 
we  say.     So  the  Christian  is  born,  not  made. 

There  remains  one  other  and  imperative  pro- 
test against  regeneration  being  unnecessary. 
Human  nature  demands  regeneration  as  if  it 
were  necessary. 

No  man  who  knows  the  human  heart  or  human 
history  will  marvel  as  if  it  were  unnecessary  that 
the  world  must  be  born  again.  Every  other  con- 
ceivable measure  has  been  tried  to  reform  it. 
Government  has  tried  it,  Philosophy  has  tried  it, 
Philanthropy  has  tried  it,  and  failed.  The  heart 
—  the  national  heart  or  the  individual  heart  — 


MARVEL  NOT  225 

remains  deceitful  above  all  things  and  desperately 
wicked.  Reformation  has  been  of  little  use  to  it; 
for  every  reformation  is  but  a  fresh  and  unguar- 
anteed attempt  to  do  what  never  has  been  done. 
Reconstruction  has  been  of  little  use  to  it;  for  re- 
construction is  an  ill-advised  endeavour  to  rebuild 
a  house  which  has  fallen  a  thousand  times  already 
with  the  same  old  bricks  and  beams.  Man  has  had 
every  chance  from  the  creation  to  the  present 
moment  to  prove  that  regeneration  was  not  the 
one  necessity  of  the  world  —  and,  again,  utterly 
failed. 

We  are  still  told,  indeed,  that  all  the  world 
needs  is  just  to  get  a  start.  Once  set  a  man  on 
his  feet,  or  a  universe,  with  a  few  good  guiding 
principles.  Give  human  nature  fair  play,  and  it 
must  win  in  the  end.  But  no.  The  experiment 
has  been  tried.  God  tried  it  Himself.  It  was 
fairly  done,  and  it  failed.  The  wickedness  of 
man  had  waxed  great  throughout  the  land.  So 
God  said  He  would  destroy  all  living  flesh,  and 
select  a  picked  few  of  the  best  inhabitants  to 
start  the  world  afresh.  A  fair  experiment.  So 
all  the  world  was  drowned  except  a  little  nucleus* 
in  an  ark  —  the  picked  few  who  were  to  found 
Utopia,  who  were  to  reconstruct  the  universe,  who 
were  to  begin  human  life  again,  and  make  every- 
thing so  much  better  than  it  was  before.  But 
the  experiment  failed.  The  picked  few  failed. 
Their  children  failed.  Their  children's  children 
failed.     Things  got  no  better;  only  worse,  per- 

15 


226  MARVEL  NOT 

haps,  and  worse ;  and  no  man  ever  really  knew 
the  cause  till  Jesus  told  the  world  that  it  must  — 
that  it  was  essentially  necessary  —  that  it  must, 
absolutely  and  imperatively  must,  be  born  again. 

If  human  nature  makes  it  necessary,  much 
more  does  the  Divine  nature.  When  Christ  shall 
present  His  Church  to  God,  it  must  be  as  a  Spot- 
less Bride.  In  that  eternal  kingdom  saints  are 
more  than  subjects  :  they  are  the  companions  of 
the  King.  They  must  be  a  very  select  number. 
They  must  be  a  very  high-born  company.  Mar- 
vel not  if  you  and  I  are  to  be  there  —  as  if  it  were 
unnecessary  that  we  must  be  born  again,  "  Lord, 
who  shall  abide  in  Thy  tabernacle  —  who  shall 
dwell  in  Thy  holy  hill?  He  that  hath  clean 
hands  and  a  pure  heart."  There  shall  in  no  wise 
enter  into  it  anything  that  defileth.  Marvel  not 
as  if  it  were  unnecessary  that  our  robes  should  be 
washed  in  white. 

Marvel  not  as  if  it  were  unintelligible. 

Marvel  not  as  if  it  were  impossible. 

Marvel  not  as  if  it  were  unnecessary  that  ye 
must  be  born  again.  Marvel  if  you  are.  Marvel 
if  you  are. 


NUMBER  XI 

The  Man  after  God's 
Own  Heart 

A     BIBLE     STUDY     ON     THE 
IDEAL  OF  A  CHRISTIAN  LIFE 

"  y4  tnan  after  mine  ozini  hearty  who  shall  fulfil  all  My 
wilir  —  Acts  xiii.  22. 

NO  man  can  be  making  much  of  his  hfe  who 
has  not  a  very  definite  conception  of  what 
he  is  hving  for.  And  if  you  ask,  at  random,  a 
dozen  men  what  is  the  end  of  their  hfe,  you  will  be 
surprised  to  find  how  few  have  formed  to  them- 
selves more  than  the  most  dim  idea.  The  ques- 
tion of  the  siivimimi  bonum  has  ever  been  the  most 
difficult  for  the  human  mind  to  grasp.  What 
shall  a  man  do  with  his  life?  What  is  life  for? 
and  Why  is  it  given?  This  has  been  the  one 
great  puzzle  for  human  books  and  human 
thoughts;  and  ancient  philosophy  and  mediaeval 
learning  and  modern  culture  alike  have  failed  to 
tell  us  what  these  mean. 

No  man,  no  book  save  one,  has  ever  told  the 
world  what  it  wants,  so  each  has  had  to  face  the 
problem  in  his  own  uncertain  light,  and  carry  out, 
each  for  himself,  the  life  that  he  thinks  best. 


228     MAN   AFTER   GOD'S   OWN   HEART 

Here  is  one  who  says  literature  is  the  great 
thing  —  he  will  be  a  literary  man.  He  lays  down 
for  himself  his  ideal  of  a  literary  life.  He  sur- 
rounds himself  with  the  best  ideals  of  style ;  and 
with  his  great  ambition  working  towards  great 
ends,  after  great  models,  he  cuts  out  for  himself 
what  he  thinks  is  his  great  life-work.  Another 
says  the  world  is  the  great  thing  —  he  will  be  a 
man  of  the  world.  A  third  will  be  a  business 
man ;    a  fourth,  a  man  of  science. 

And  the  Christian  must  have  a  definite  aim  and 
model  for  his  life.  These  aims  are  great  aims, 
but  not  great  enough  for  him.  His  one  book  has 
taught  him  a  nobler  life  than  all  the  libraries  of 
the  rich  and  immortal  past.  He  may  wish  to  be 
a  man  of  business,  or  a  man  of  science,  and  indeed 
he  may  be  both.  But  he  covets  a  nobler  name 
than  that.  He  will  be  the  man  after  God's  own 
heart.  He  has  found  out  the  secret  philosophy 
never  knew,  that  the  ideal  life  is  this  —  "A  man 
after  mine  own  heart,  who  shall  fulfil  all  My 
will."  And  just  as  the  man  of  the  world,  or  the 
literary  man,  lays  down  a  programme  for  the 
brief  span  of  his  working  life,  which  he  feels 
must  vanish  shortly  in  the  unknown  of  the 
grave,  much  more  will  the  Christian  for  the  great 
span  of  his  life  before  it  arches  over  the  valley 
into  eternity. 

He  is  a  great  man  who  has  a  great  plan  to  his 
life  —  the  greatest  who  has  the  greatest  plan  and 
keeps   it.     And   the  Christian   should    have  the 


MAN   AFTER  GOD'S   OWN   HEART    229 

greatest  plan  as  his  life  is  the  greatest,  as  his 
work  is  the  greatest,  as  his  life  and  his  work  will 
follow  him  when  all  this  world's  is  done. 

Now  we  are  going  to  ask  to-day.  What  is  the 
true  plan  of  the  ideal  Christian  life?  We  shall 
need  a  definition  that  we  may  know  it,  a  descrip- 
tion that  we  may  follow  it.  And  if  you  look, 
you  will  see  that  both,  in  a  sense,  lie  on  the  sur- 
face of  our  text.  "  A  man  after  mine  own  heart, " 
—  here  is  the  definition  of  what  we  are  to  be. 
"Who  shall  fulfil  all  My  will,"  — here  is  the 
description  of  how  we  are  to  be  it.  These  words 
are  the  definition  and  the  description  of  the 
model  human  life.  They  describe  the  man  after 
God's  own  heart.  They  give  us  the  key  to  the 
Ideal  Life. 

The  general  truth  of  these  words  is  simply 
this :  that  the  end  of  life  is  to  do  God's  will. 
Now  that  is  a  great  and  surprising  revelation. 
No  man  ever  found  that  out.  It  has  been  before 
the  world  these  eighteen  hundred  years,  yet  few 
have  even  found  it  out  to-day.  One  man  will 
tell  you  the  end  of  life  is  to  be  true.  Another 
will  tell  you  it  is  to  deny  self.  Another  will 
say  it  is  to  keep  the  Ten  Commandments.  A 
fourth  will  point  you  to  the  Beatitudes.  One 
will  tell  you  it  is  to  do  good,  another  that  it  is 
to  get  good,  another  that  it  is  to  be  good.  But 
the  end  of  life  is  in  none  of  these  things.  It  is 
more  than  all,  and  it  includes  them  all.  The 
end  of  life  is  not  to  deny  self,  nor  to  be  true, 


230     MAN   AFTER   GOD'S  OWN   HEART 

nor  to  keep  the  Ten  Commandments  —  simply 
to  do  God's  will.  It  is  not  to  get  good  nor  be 
good,  nor  even  to  do  good  —  just  what  God  wills, 
whether  that  be  working  or  waiting,  or  winning 
or  losing,  or  suffering  or  recovering,  or  living  or 
dying. 

But  this  conception  is  too  great  for  us.  It  is 
not  practical  enough.  It  is  the  greatest  rnr^- 
ception  of  man  that  has  ever  been  given  to  the 
world.  The  great  philosophers,  from  Socrates 
and  Plato  to  Immanuel  Kant  and  Mill,  have 
given  us  their  conception  of  an  ideal  human 
life.  But  none  of  them  is  at  all  so  great  as 
this.  Each  of  them  has  constructed  an  ideal 
human  life,  a  universal  life  they  call  it,  a  life 
for  all  other  lives,  a  life  for  all  men  and  all 
time  to  copy.  None  of  them  is  half  so  deep,  so 
wonderful,  so  far-reaching,  as  this:  "A  man 
after  mine  own  hearty  who  shall  fulfil  all  My 
will." 

But  exactly  for  this  very  reason  it  is  at  first 
sight  impracticable.  We  feel  helpless  beside  a 
truth  so  great  and  eternal.  God  must  teach  us 
these  things.  Like  little  children,  we  must  sit 
at  His  feet  and  learn.  And  as  we  come  to  Him 
with  our  difficulty,  we  find  He  has  prepared  two 
practical  helps  for  us,  that  He  may  humanise 
it  and  bring  it  near  to  us,  so  that  by  studying 
these  helps,  and  following  them  with  willing 
and  humble  hearts,  we  shall  learn  to  copy  into 
our  lives  the  great  ideal  of  God. 


MAN   AFTER   GOD'S   OWN   HEART    231 

The  two  helps  which  God   has  given  us  are 
these : 

I.   The  Model    Life   realised    in   Christ,    the 
living  Word. 

IT.   The  Model   Life  analysed    in  the  Bible, 
the  written  Word. 

The  usual  method  is  to  deal  almost  exclu- 
sively with  the  first  of  these.  To-day,  for  cer- 
tain reasons,  we  mean  to  consider  the  second. 
As  regards  the  first,  of  course,  if  a  man  could 
follow  Christ  he  would  lead  the  model  life.  But 
what  is  meant  by  telling  a  man  to  follow  Christ.'* 
How  is  it  to  be  done .''  It  is  like  putting  a  young 
artist  before  a  Murillo  or  a  Raphael,  and  telling 
him  to  copy  it.  But  even  as  the  artist  in  fol- 
lowing his  ideal  has  colours  put  into  his  hand, 
and  brush  and  canvas,  and  a  hint  here  from  this 
master,  and  a  touch  there  from  another,  so  with 
the  pupil  in  the  school  of  Christ.  The  great 
Master  Himself  is  thereto  help  him.  The  Holy 
Spirit  is  there  to  help  him.  But  the  model  life 
is  not  to  be  mystically  attained.  There  is  spir- 
ituality about  it,  but  no  unreality.  So  God  has 
provided  another  great  help,  our  second  help: 
The  Model  Life  analysed  in  the  Word  of  God. 
Without  the  one  the  ideal  life  would  be  incred- 
ible; without  the  other  it  would  be  unintel- 
ligible. Hence  God  has  given  us  two  sides 
of  this  model  life:  (i)  Realised  in  the  Living 
Word ;  (2)  Analysed  in  the  written  Word. 

Let  us  search  our  Bibles  then  to  find  this  ideal 


232     MAN   AFTER   GOD'S  OWN   HEART 

life,  so  that  copying  it  in  our  lives,  reproducing 
it  day  by  day  and  point  by  point,  we  may  learn 
to  make  the  most  of  our  little  life,  and  have  it 
said  of  us,  as  it  was  of  David,  "A  man  after 
mine  own  heart,  who  shall  fulfil  all  My  will," 

(i)  The  first  thing  our  ideal  man  wants  is  a 
reason  for  his  being  alive  at  all.  He  must  ac- 
count for  his  existence.  What  is  he  here  for.-* 
And  the  Bible  answer  is  this:  "I  come  to  do 
Thy  will.  O  God."  (Heb.  x.  7). 

That  is  what  we  are  here  for  —  to  do  God's 
will.  "I  come  to  do  Thy  will,  O  God."  That 
is  the  object  of  your  life  and  mine  —  to  do  God's 
will.  It  is  not  to  be  happy  or  to  be  successful, 
or  famous,  or  to  do  the  best  we  can,  and  get 
on  honestly  in  the  world.  It  is  something  far 
higher  than  this  —  to  do  God's  will.  There,  at 
the  very  outset,  is  the  great  key  to  life.  Any 
one  of  us  can  tell  in  a  moment  whether  our  lives 
are  right  or  not.  Are  we  doing  God's  will.^ 
We  do  not  mean,  Are  we  doing  God's  work.-'  — 
preaching  or  teaching,  or  collecting  money  — 
but  God's  zvill.  A  man  may  think  he  is  doing 
God's  work,  when  he  is  not  even  doing  God's 
will.  And  a  man  may  be  doing  God's  work  and 
God's  will  quite  as  much  by  hewing  stones,  or 
sweeping  streets,  as  by  preaching  or  praying. 
So  the  question  just  means  this  —  Are  we  work- 
ing out  our  common  every-day  life  on  the  great 
lines  of  God's  will.-'  This  is  different  from  the 
world's  model  life.     "  I  come  to  push  my  way." 


MAN   AFTER   GOD'S   OWN   HEART     233 

This  is  the  world's  idea  of  it.  Not  my  way  — 
not  my  will,  but  Thine  be  done.  This  is  the 
Christian's.  This  is  what  the  man  after  God's 
own  heart  says :  "  I  seek  not  mine  own  will,  but 
the  will  of  Him  that  sent  Me." 

(2)  The  second  thing  the  ideal  man  needs  is 
Sustenance.  After  he  has  got  life,  you  must 
give  him  food.  Now,  what  food  shall  you  give 
him.'*  Shall  you  feed  him  with  knowledge,  or 
with  riches,  or  with  honour,  or  with  beauty,  or 
with  power,  or  truth.-*  No;  there  is  a  rarer 
luxury  than  these  —  so  rare,  that  few  have  ever 
more  than  tasted  it ;  so  rich,  that  they  who  have 
will  never  live  on  other  fare  again.  It  is  this; 
"My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent 
Me  "  (John  iv.  34). 

Again,  to  do  God's  will.  That  is  what  a  man 
lives  for:  it  is  also  what  he  lives  on.  Meat. 
Meat  is  strength,  support,  nourishment.  The 
strength  of  the  model  life  is  drawn  from  the 
Divine  will.  Man  has  a  strong  will.  But  God's 
will  is  everlasting  strength  —  Almighty  strength. 
Such  strength  the  ideal  man  gets.  He  grows  by 
it,  he  assimilates  it  —  it  is  his  life.  "Man  shall 
not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that 
Cometh  out  of  God."  Nothing  can  satisfy  his 
appetite  but  this — -he  hungers  to  do  God's  will. 
Nothing  else  will  fill  him.  Every  one  knows 
that  the  world  is  hungry.  But  the  hungry  world 
is  starving.  It  has  many  meats  and  many  drinks, 
but  there  is  no  nourishment  in  them.     It  has 


234     MAN   AFTER   GOD'S   OWN    HEART 

pleasures,  and  gaiety,  and  excitement ;  but  there 
is  no  food  there  for  the  immortal  craving  of  the 
soul.  It  has  the  theatre  and  worldly  society, 
and  worldly  books,  and  worldly  lusts.  But 
these  things  merely  intoxicate.  There  is  no 
sustenance  in  them.  So  our  ideal  life  turns  its 
eye  from  them  all  with  unutterable  loathing. 
"J^meat  is  to  do  God's  will."  To  do  God's 
will !  No  possibility  of  starving  on  such  won- 
derful fare  as  this.  God's  will  is  eternal.  It 
is  eternal  food  the  Christian  lives  upon.  In 
spring-time  it  is  not  sown,  and  in  summer 
drought  it  cannot  fail.  In  harvest  it  is  not 
reaped,  yet  the  storehouse  is  ever  full.  Oh, 
what  possibilities  of  life  it  opens  up!  What 
possibilities  of  growth!  What  possibilities  of 
work!    How  a  soul  develops  on  God's  will! 

(3)  The  next  thing  the  ideal  man  needs  is 
Society.  Man  is  not  made  to  be  alone.  He 
needs  friendships.  Without  society,  the  ideal 
man  would  be  a  monster,  a  contradiction.  You 
must  give  him  friendship.  Now,  whom  will  you 
give  him.?  Will  you  compliment  him  by  call- 
ing upon  the  great  men  of  the  earth  to  come  and 
minister  to  him.?  No.  The  ideal  man  does  not 
want  compliments.  He  has  better  food.  Will 
you  invite  the  ministers  and  the  elders  of  the 
Church  to  meet  him.?  Will  you  offer  him  the 
companionship  of  saint  or  angel,  or  seraphim  or 
cherubim,  as  he  treads  his  path  through  the 
wilderness  of  life.?     No;  for  none  of  these  will 


MAN   AFTER   GOD'S   OWN   HEART     235 

satisfy  him.  He  has  a  better  friendship  than 
saint  or  angel,  or  seraphim  or  cherubim.  The 
answer  trembles  on  the  lip  of  every  one  who  is 
trying  to  follow  the  ideal  life:  "  Whosoever  shall 
do  the  zvill  of  My  FatJier  which  is  in  Heaven, 
the  sa^ne  is  My  brother,  and  sister,  and  mother" 
(Matt.  xii.  50;  Mark  iii.  35). 

Yes.  My  brother,  and  My  sister  and  mother. 
Mother !  The  path  of  life  is  dark  and  cheerless 
to  you.  There  is  a  smoother  path  just  by  the 
side  of  it  —  a  forbidden  path.  You  have  been 
tempted  many  a  time  to  take  it.  But  you  knew 
it  was  wrong,  and  you  paused.  Then,  with  a 
sigh,  you  struck  along  the  old  weary  path  again. 
It  was  the  will  of  God,  you  said.  Brave  mother! 
Oh,  if  you  knew  it,  there  was  a  voice  at  your  ear 
just  then,  as  Jesus  saw  the  brave  thing  you  had 
done,  "  My  mother !  "  "  He  that  doeth  the  will 
of  My  Father,  the  same  is  My  mother."  Yes; 
this  is  the  consolation  of  Christ  —  "My  mother." 
What  society  to  be  in !  What  about  the  dark- 
ness of  the  path,  if  we  have  the  brightness  of 
His  smile?    Oh  !  it  is  better,  as  the  hymnist  says, 

"  It  is  better  to  walk  in  the  dark  with  God, 
Than  walk  alone  in  the  hght ; 
It  is  better  to  walk  with  Him  by  faith, 
Than  walk  alone  by  sight." 

Some  young  man  here  is  suffering  fierce  temp- 
tation. To-day  he  feels  strong;  but  to-morrow 
his  Sabbath  resolutions  will  desert  him.     What 


236    MAN   AFTER   GOD'S   OWN   HEART 

will  his  companions  say,  if  he  does  not  join  them  ? 
He  cannot  face  them  if  he  is  to  play  the  Chris- 
tian. Companions !  What  are  all  the  compan- 
ions in  the  world  to  this?  What  are  all  the 
friendships,  the  truest  and  the  best,  to  this  dear 
and  sacred  brotherhood  of  Christ?  "  He  that 
doeth  the  will  of  My  Father,  the  same  is  My 
brother." 

My  mother,  my  brother,  and  my  sister.  He 
has  a  sister — some  sister  here.  Sister!  Your 
life  is  a  quiet  and  even  round  of  common  and 
homely  things.  You  dream,  perhaps,  of  a  wider 
sphere,  and  sigh  for  a  great  and  useful  life,  like 
some  women  whose  names  you  know.  You  ques- 
tion whether  it  is  right  that  life  should  be  such 
a  little  bundle  of  very  little  things.  But  nothing 
is  little  that  is  done  for  God,  and  it  must  be  right 
if  it  be  His  will.  And  if  this  common  life,  with 
its  homely  things,  is  God's  discipline  for  you,  be 
assured  that  in  your  small  corner,  your  unob- 
served, your  unambitious,  your  simple  woman's 
lot  is  very  near  and  very  dear  to  Him  Who  said, 
"Whosoever  doeth  the  will  of  My  Father,  the 
same  is  My  sister." 

Now  we  have  found  the  ideal  man  a  Friend. 
But  he  wants  something  more. 

(4)  He  wants  Language.  He  must  speak  to 
his  Friend.  He  cannot  be  silent  in  such  com- 
pany. And  speaking  to  such  a  Friend  is  not 
mere  conversation.  It  has  a  higher  name.  It 
is  communion.     It  is  prayer.     Well,  we  listen  to 


MAN   AFTER   GOD'S  OWN   HEART    237 

hear  the  ideal  man's  prayer.  Something  about 
God's  will  it  must  be;  for  that  is  what  he  is  sure 
to  talk  about.  That  is  the  object  of  his  life. 
That  is  his  meat.  In  that  he  finds  his  society. 
So  he  will  be  sure  to  talk  about  it.  Every  one 
knows  what  his  prayer  will  be.  Every  one  re- 
members the  words  of  the  ideal  prayer:  "  TJiy 
will  be  Done'"  (Matt,  vi,  10), 

Now  mark  his  emphasis  on  dotie.  He  prays 
that  God's  will  may  be  done.  It  is  not  that  God's 
will  may  be  borne,  endured,  put  up  with.  There 
is  activity  in  his  prayer.  It  is  not  mere  resigna- 
tion. How  often  is  this  prayer  toned  off  with 
mere  endurance,  sufferance,  passivity.  "  Thy  will 
be  done,"  people  say  resignedly,  "  There  is  no 
help  for  it.  We  had  just  as  well  submit.  God 
evidently  means  to  have  His  way.  Better  to 
give  in  at  once  and  make  the  most  of  it."  This 
is  far  from  the  ideal  prayer.  Well,  it  is  a  great 
thing  to  say  this,  but  not  in  this  spirit.  It  may 
be  nobler  to  suffer  God's  will  than  to  do  it; 
perhaps  it  is.  But  there  is  nothing  noble  in 
resignation  of  this  sort  —  this  resignation  under 
protest  as  it  were.  And  it  disguises  the  meaning 
of  the  prayer,  "  Thy  will  be  done."  It  is  in- 
tensely active.  It  is  not  an  acquiescence  simply 
in  God's  dealing.  It  is  a  cry  for  more  of  God's 
dealing.  God's  dealing  with  me,  with  every- 
thing, with  everybody,  with  the  whole  world. 
It  is  an  appeal  to  the  mightiest  energy  in  heaven 
or  earth  to  work,  to  make  more  room  for  itself, 


238     MAN   AFTER   GOD'S   OWN   HEART 

to  energise.  It  is  a  prayer  that  the  Almighty- 
energies  of  the  Divine  will  nay  be  universally 
known,  and  felt,  and  worshipped. 

The  ideal  man  has  no  deeper  prayer  than 
this.  It  is  the  truest  language  of  his  heart. 
He  does  not  want  a  bed  of  roses,  or  his  pathway 
strewn  with  flowers.  He  wants  to  do  God's  will. 
He  does  not  want  health  or  wealth,  nor  does  he 
covet  sickness  or  poverty  —  just  what  God  sends. 
He  does  not  want  success  —  even  success  in 
winning  souls  —  or  want  of  success.  What  God 
wills  for  him,  that  is  all.  He  does  not  want  to 
prosper  in  business,  or  to  keep  barely  struggling 
on.  God  knows  what  is  best.  He  does  not 
want  his  friends  to  live,  himself  to  live  or  die. 
God's  will  be  done.  The  currents  of  his  life 
are  deeper  than  the  circumstance  of  things. 
There  is  a  deeper  principle  in  it  than  to  live 
to  gratify  himself  And  so  he  simply  asks, 
that  in  the  ordinary  round  of  his  daily  life  there 
may  be  no  desire  of  his  heart  more  deep,  more 
vivid,  more  absorbingly  present  than  this,  "  Thy 
will  be  done."  He  who  makes  this  the  prayer 
of  his  life  will  know  that  of  all  prayer  it  is 
the  most  truly  blessed,  the  most  nearly  in  the 
spirit  of  Him  who  sought  not  His  own  will, 
but  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  Him. 

"  Lord  Jesus,  as  Thou  wilt !  if  among  thorns  I  go 
Still  sometimes  here  and  there  let  a  few  roses  blow. 
No !  Thou  on  earth  along  the  thorny  path  hath  gone, 
Then  lead  me  after  Thee,  my  Lord ;  Thy  will  be  done." 

Schmolk. 


MAN   AFTER   GOD'S   OWN   HEART    239 

(5)  But  the  ideal  man  does  not  always  pray. 
There  is  such  perfect  blessedness  in  praying  the 
ideal  prayer  that  language  fails  him  sometimes. 
The  peace  of  God  passes  all  understanding,  much 
less   all  expression.      It  comes  down   upon   the 
soul,  and  makes  it  ring  with  unutterable  joy.     And 
language  stops.      The  ideal  man  can  no  longer 
pray  to  his  Friend.      So  his  prayer  changes  into 
Praise.     He   is  too   full  to   speak,   so  his   heart 
bursts  into  song.     Therefore  we  must  find  in  the 
Bible  the  praise  of  his  lips.     And  who  does  not 
remember  in  the  Psalms  the  song  of  the  ideal 
man?     The  huntsmen  would  gather  at  night  to 
sing  of  their  prowess  in  the  chase,  the  shepherd 
would  chant  the  story  of  the  lion  or  the  bear 
which  he  killed  as  he  watched  his  flocks.     But 
David  takes  down  his  harp  and  sings  a  sweeter 
psalm  than  all :  "  Thy  StaUitcs  have  been  my  Songs 
in  the  House  of  my  pilgrimage"   (Ps.  cxix.  54). 
He  knows  no  sweeter  strain.     How  different  from 
those  who  think  God's  law  is  a  stern,  cold  thing ! 
God's  law  is  His  written  will.     It  has  no  terrors 
to  the  ideal  man.     He  is  not  afraid  to  think  of 
its  sternness  and  majesty.     "  I  will  meditate  on 
Thy  laws  day  and  night,"  he  says.     He  tells  us 
the  subject  of  his  thoughts.     Ask  him  what  he  is 
thinking  about  at  any  time.    "  Thy  laws,"  he  says. 
How  he  can  please  his  Master.     What  more  he 
can  bear  for   Him.     What  next  he  can  do  for 
Him.     He  has  no  other  pleasure  in  life  than  this. 
You  need  not  speak  to  him  of  the  delights  of  life. 


240     MAN  AFTER   GOD'S   OWN    HEART 

"  I  will  delight  myself  in  Thy  statutes,"  he  says. 
You  see  what  amusements  the  ideal  man  has. 
You  see  where  the  sources  of  his  enjoyment  are. 
Praise  is  the  overflow  of  a  full  heart.  When  it  is 
full  of  enjoyment  it  overflows ;  and  you  can  tell 
the  kind  of  enjoyment  from  the  kind  of  praise 
that  runs  over.  The  ideal  man's  praise  is  of  the 
will  of  God.  He  has  no  other  sources  of  enjoy- 
ment. The  cup  of  the  world's  pleasure  has  no 
attraction  for  him.  The  delights  of  life  are  bitter. 
Here  is  his  only  joy,  his  only  delight  (Ps.  xl.  8). 
"  I  delight  to  do  Thy  will,  O  my  God." 

(6)  The  next  thing  the  ideal  man  wants  is 
Education.  He  needs  teaching.  He  must  take 
his  place  with  the  other  disciples  at  his  Mas- 
ter's feet.  What  does  he  want  from  the  great 
Teacher?  Teach  me  Wisdom?  No.  Wisdom  is 
not  enough.  Teach  me  what  is  Truth?  No, 
not  even  that.  Teach  me  how  to  do  good,  how 
to  love,  how  to  trust?  No,  there  is  a  deeper  want 
than  all.  "  Teach  me  to  do  Thy  WilV  (Ps.  cxliii. 
lo).  This  is  the  true  education.  Teach  me  to 
do  Thy  Will.  This  was  the  education  of  Christ. 
Wisdom  is  a  great  study,  and  truth,  and  good 
works,  and  love,  and  trust,  but  there  is  an  earlier 
lesson  —  obedience.  So  the  ideal  pupil  prays, 
"Teach  me  to  do  Thy  Will." 

And  now  we  have  almost  gone  far  enough. 
These  are  really  all  the  things  the  ideal  man  can 
need.  But  in  case  he  should  want  anything  else, 
Go4  has  given  the  man  after  his  own  heart  a 


MAN   AFTER   GOD'S   OWN   HEART     241 

promise.  God  never  leaves  anything  unprovided 
for.  An  emergency  might  arise  in  the  ideal 
man's  life ;  or  he  might  make  a  mistake  or  lose 
heart,  or  be  afraid  to  ask  his  friend  for  some  very 
great  thing  he  needed,  thinking  it  was  too  much, 
or  for  some  very  little  thing,  thinking  it  unworthy 
of  notice.     So  God  has  given. 

(7)  The  ideal  Promise,  "  If  we  ask  anything  ac- 
cording to  His  will,  He  heareth  us  .  .  .  and  we 
know  that  we  have  the  petitions  that  we  desired 
from  Him  "  (i  John  v.  14).  If  ye  ask  anything 
—  no  exception  —  no  limit  to  God's  confidence 
in  him.  He  trusts  him  to  ask  right  things.  He  is 
guiding  him,  even  in  what  he  asks,  if  he  is  the 
man  after  God's  own  heart;  so  God  sets  no  limit 
to  his  power.  If  any  one  is  doing  God's  will,  let 
him  ask  anything.  It  is  God's  will  that  he  ask 
anything.     Let  him  put  His  promise  to  the  test. 

Notice  here  what  the  true  basis  of  prayer  is. 
The  prayer  that  is  answered  is  the  prayer  after 
God's  will.  And  the  reason  for  this  is  plain. 
What  is  God's  will  is  God's  wish.  And  when  a 
man  does  what  God  wills,  he  does  what  God 
wishes  done.  Therefore  God  will  have  that  done 
at  any  cost,  at  any  sacrifice.  Thousands  of 
prayers  are  never  answered,  simply  because  God 
does  not  wish  them.  If  we  pray  for  any  one 
thing,  or  any  number  of  things  we  are  sure  God 
wishes,  we  may  be  sure  our  wishes  will  be  grati- 
fied.    For  our  wishes  are  only  the  reflection  of 

God's.     And  the  wish  in  us  is  almost  equivalent 
16 


242     MAN   AFTER   GOD'S  OWN   HEART 

to  the  answer.  It  is  the  answer  casting  its 
shadow  backwards.  Ah*eady  the  thing  is  done 
in  the  mind  of  God.  It  casts  two  shadows  —  one 
backward,  one  forward.  The  backward  shadow 
■ —  that  is  the  wish  before  the  thing  is  done,  which 
sheds  itself  in  prayer.  The  forward  shadow  — 
that  is  the  joy  after  the  thing  is  done,  which 
sheds  itself  in  praise.  Oh,  what  a  rich  and  won- 
derful life  this  ideal  life  must  be !  Asking  any- 
thing, getting  everything,  willing  with  God,  pray- 
ing with  God,  praising  with  God.  Surely  it  is 
too  much,  this  last  promise.  How  can  God  trust 
us  with  a  power  so  deep  and  terrible?  Ah,  He 
can  trust  the  ideal  life  with  anything.  "  If  he  ask 
anything."  Well,  if  he  do,  he  will  ask  nothing 
amiss.  It  will  be  God's  will  if  it  is  asked.  It 
will  be  God's  will  if  it  is  not  asked.  For  he  is 
come,  this  man,  to  do  God^s  will. 

There  is  only  one  thing  more  which  the  model 
man  may  ever  wish  to  have.  We  can  imagine 
him  wondering,  as  he  thinks  of  the  unspeakable 
beauty  of  this  life  —  of  its  angelic  purity,  of  its 
divine  glory,  of  its  Christ-like  unselfishness,  of 
its  heavenly  peace  —  how  long  this  life  shall  last. 
It  may  seem  too  bright  and  beautiful,  for  all 
things  fair  have  soon  to  come  to  an  end.  And  if 
any  cloud  could  cross  the  true  Christian's  sky,  it 
would  be  when  he  thought  that  this  ideal  life 
might  cease.  But  God,  in  the  riches  of  His  fore- 
thought, has  rounded  off  this  corner  of  his  life 
with  a  great  far-reaching  text,  which  looks  above 


MAN   AFTER   GOD'S  OWN   HEART     243 

the  circumstance  of  him,  and  projects  his  Hfe  into 
the  vast  Eternity  beyond.  "  He  that  doctJi  the 
will  of  God  abidcth  for  ever"  (i  John  ii.  17). 

May  God  grant  that  you  and  I  may  learn  to 
hve  this  great  and  holy  life,  remembering  the 
solemn  words  of  Him  who  lived  it  first,  who  only 
lived  it  all :  "  Not  every  one  that  saith  unto  me, 
Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  ;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  My  Father 
which  is  in  Heaven." 


NUMBER   XII 

Penitence 

'■^  And  the  Lord  turned  and  looked  upon  Peter  .  .  . 
and  Peter  went  out  and  wept  bitterly.''''  —  Luke  xxiL  6i,  62. 

EVERY  man  at  some  time  in  his  life  has 
fallen.  Many  have  fallen  many  times  ; 
few,  few  times.  And  the  more  a  man  knows  his 
life,  and  watches  its  critical  flow  from  day  to  day, 
the  larger  seems  to  grow  the  number  of  these 
falls,  and  the  oftener  reaches  out  to  God  his 
penitential  prayer,  "  Turn  yet  again,  O  Lord !  " 

We  have  all  shuddered  before  this  as  we  read 
the  tale  of  Peter's  guilt.  Many  a  time  we  have 
watched  the  plot  as  it  thickens  round  him,  and 
felt  the  almost  unconscious  sympathy  which 
betrayed  itself.  How  like  the  story  was  to  one 
that  had  sometimes  happened  with  ourselves. 
And  we  knew,  as  we  followed  the  dreary  stages 
of  his  fall,  that  the  same  well-worn  steps  had 
been  traced  since  then  by  every  human  foot. 
How  Peter  could  have  slept  in  the  garden,  when 
he  should  have  watched  and  prayed,  all  men 
who  have  an  inner  history  can  understand.  The 
faithlessness  that  made  him  follow  Christ  far  off, 


PENITENCE  245 

instead  of  keeping  at  his  Master's  side,  not  the 
best  of  us  will  challenge.  For  we  too  know  what 
it  is  sometimes  to  get  out  of  step  with  Christ. 
We  will  be  the  last  to  stop  and  ask  his  business 
in  that  worldly  company  who  warmed  themselves 
by  the  fire.  And  none  who  know  that  the  heart 
is  deceitful  above  all  things  will  wonder  that  this 
man  who  had  lived  so  long  in  the  inner  circle  of 
fellowship  with  Christ,  whose  eyes  were  familiar 
with  miracles,  who  was  one  of  that  most  select 
audience  who  witnessed  the  glory  of  the  trans- 
figuration —  that  this  man,  when  his  ears  were 
yet  full  of  the  most  solemn  words  the  world  had 
ever  heard,  when  his  heart  was  warm  still  with 
Communion-table  thoughts,  should  have  turned 
his  back  upon  his  Lord,  and,  almost  ere  the 
sacramental  wine  was  dry  upon  his  lips,  have 
cursed  Him  to  His  face.  Such  things,  alas !  are 
not  strange  to  those  who  know  the  parts  in  the 
appalling  tragedy  of  sin. 

But  there  is  a  greater  fact  in  Peter's  life  than 
Peter's  sin  —  a  much  less  known  fact  —  Peter's 
penitence.  All  the  world  are  at  one  with  Peter 
in  his  sin ;  but  not  all  the  world  are  with  him  in 
his  penitence.  Sinful  Peter  is  one  man,  and 
Repentant  Peter  is  another;  and  many  who  have 
kept  his  company  along  these  worn  steps  to  sin 
have  left  him  to  trace  the  tear-washed  path  of 
penitence  alone.  But  the  real  lesson  in  Peter's 
life  is  the  lesson  in  repentance.  His  fall  is  a 
lesson  in  sin  which  requires  no  teacher,  but  his 


246  PENITENCE 

repentance  is  a  great  lesson  in  salvation.  And 
Peter's  penitence  is  full  of  the  deepest  spiritual 
meaning  to  all  who  have  ever  made  Peter's 
discovery  —  that  they  have  sinned. 

The  few  words  which  form  the  pathetic  sequel 
to  the  tale  of  Peter's  sin  may  be  defined  as  the 
"  ideal  progress  of  Christian  penitence."  They 
contain  materials  for  the  analysis  of  the  most  rare 
and  difficult  grace  in  spiritual  experience.  And 
lying  underneath  these  two  simple  sentences  are 
the  secrets  of  some  of  the  most  valuable  spiritual 
laws.  We  find  here  four  outstanding  characteris- 
tics of  the  state  of  penitence : 

(i)  It  is  a  divine  thing.  It  began  with  God. 
Peter  did  not  turn.  But  "  The  Lord  turned  and 
looked  upon  Peter." 

(2)  It  is  a  very  sensitive  thing.  A  look  did  it. 
The  Lord  .  .  .  looked  upon  Peter. 

(3)  It  is  a  very  intense  thing.  Peter  went  out 
and  wept  bitterly. 

(4)  It  is  a  very  lonely  thing.  Peter  wc7it  out  — 
out  into  the  quiet  night,  to  be  alone  with  his  sin 
and  God. 

These  are  characteristic  not  only  of  the  peni- 
tential state,  but  of  all  God's  operations  on  the 
soul. 

(i)  To  take  the  first  of  these,  we  find  that  the 
beginning  of  this  strange  experience  came  from 
God.  It  was  not  Peter  who  turned.  The  Lord 
turned  and  looked  upon  Peter.  When  the  cock 
crew,  that  might  have  recalled  him  to  himself;  he 


PENITENCE  247 

was  just  in  the  very  act  of  sin.  And  when  a  man 
is  in  the  thick  of  his  sin  his  last  thought  is  to 
throw  down  his  arms  and  repent.  So  Peter  never 
thought  of  turning,  but  the  Lord  turned ;  and 
when  Peter  would  rather  have  looked  anywhere 
else  than  at  the  Lord,  the  Lord  looked  at  Peter. 
And  this  scarce-noticed  fact  is  a  great  sermon  to 
every  one  who  sins  —  that  the  Lord  turns  first. 

Now  the  result  of  this  distinction  is  this :  that 
there  are  two  kinds  of  sorrow  for  sin.  And  these 
are  different  in  their  origin,  in  their  religious  value, 
and  in  their  influence  on  our  life.  The  com- 
moner kind  is  when  a  man  does  wrong,  and,  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  is  sorry  that  he 
has  done  it.  We  are  always  easier  in  such  a  case 
when  sorrow  comes.  It  seems  to  provide  a  sort 
of  guarantee  that  we  are  not  disposed  to  do  the 
same  again,  and  that  our  better  self  is  still  alive 
enough  to  enter  its  protest  against  the  sin  the 
lower  self  has  done.  And  we  count  this  feeling 
of  reproach  which  treads  so  closely  on  the  act 
as  a  sort  of  compensation  or  atonement  for  the 
wrong.  This  is  a  kind  of  sorrow  which  is  well 
known  to  all  who  examine  themselves,  and  in  any 
way  struggle  with  sin.  It  is  a  kind  of  sorrow 
which  is  coveted  by  all  who  examine  themselves ; 
which  gives  relief  to  what  is  called  a  penitential 
heart,  and  lends  a  fervour  to  many  a  penitential 
prayer.  But  it  is  a  startling  truth  that  there  is  no 
religion  in  such  a  state.  There  is  no  real  peni- 
tence there.     It  may  not  contain  even  one  ingre- 


248  PENITENCE 

dient  of  true  repentance.  It  is  all  many  know  of 
repentance,  and  all  many  have  for  repentance. 
But  it  is  no  true  sorrow  for  sin.  It  is  wounded 
self-love.  It  is  sorrow  that  we  were  weak  enough 
to  sin.  We  thought  we  had  been  stronger  men 
and  women,  and  when  we  were  put  to  the  test  we 
found  to  our  chagrin  that  we  had  failed.  And  this 
chagrin  is  what  we  are  apt  to  mistake  for  peni- 
tence. But  it  is  no  Divine  gift  or  grace,  this  peni- 
tence —  it  is  merely  wounded  pride  —  sorrow 
that  we  did  not  do  better,  that  we  were  not  so  good 
as  ourselves  and  our  neighbours  thought.  It  is 
just  as  if  Peter  turned  and  looked  upon  Peter. 
And  when  Peter  turns  and  looks  upon  Peter  he 
sees  what  a  poor,  weak  creature  Peter  is.  And  if 
God  had  not  looked  upon  Peter  he  might  have 
wept  well-nigh  as  bitterly,  not  because  he  had 
sinned  against  his  God,  but  because  he,  the  great 
apostle,  had  done  a  weak  thing  —  he  was  weak  as 
other  men. 

The  fit  of  low  spirits  which  comes  to  us  when 
we  find  ourselves  overtaken  in  a  fault,  though  we 
flatter  ourselves  to  reckon  it  a  certain  sign  of 
penitence,  and  a  set-oft"  to  the  sin  itself  which  God 
will  surely  take  into  account,  is  often  nothing 
more  than  vexation  and  annoyance  with  our- 
selves, that,  after  all  our  good  resolutions  and 
attempts  at  reformation,  we  have  broken  down 
again. 

Contrast  for  a  moment  with  such  a  penitence 
the  publican's  prayer  of  penitence  in  the  temple. 


PENITENCE  249 

IL  was  no  chagrin  nor  wounded  pride  with  him. 
And  we  feel  as  we  read  the  story  that  the  Lord 
must  have  turned  and  looked  upon  the  publican, 
when  he  cried  "  God  "  —  as  if  God  were  looking 
right  down  into  the  man's  eyes  —  "God  be 
merciful  to  me,  a  sinner!"  Stricken  before  his 
God,  this  publican  had  little  thought  of  the  self- 
respect  he  had  lost,  and  felt  it  no  indignity  to 
take  the  culprit's  place  and  be  taught  the  true 
divinity  of  a  culprit's  penitence. 

Now  it  will  be  seen  at  once  that  the  difference 
between  the  publican's  penitence  and  the  first- 
named  sorrow  is  just  the  difference  between  the 
human  and  the  Divine.  The  one  is  God  turning 
and  looking  upon  man,  the  other  is  man  turning 
and  looking  upon  himself.  There  is  no  wrong  in 
a  man  turning  and  looking  upon  himself — only 
there  is  danger.  There  is  the  danger  of  misin- 
terpreting what  he  sees  and  what  he  feels.  What 
he  feels  is  the  mortification,  the  self-reproach  of 
the  sculptor  who  has  made  an  unlucky  stroke  of 
the  chisel ;  the  chagrin  of  the  artist  who  has  spoilt 
the  work  of  weeks  by  a  clumsy  touch.  Apart 
altogether  from  religion  we  must  feel  mortified 
when  we  do  wrong.  Life,  surely,  is  a  work  of 
art ;  character-building,  soul-culture,  is  the  highest 
kind  of  art;  and  it  would  be  strange  indeed  if 
failure  passed  unresented  by  the  mind. 

But  what  is  complained  of  is  not  that  it  passes 
unresented  by  the  mind,  but  that  it  passes  unre- 
sented by  the  soul.     Penitence  of  some  sort  there 


250  PENITENCE 

must  be,  but  in  the  one  case  it  is  spiritual,  in  the 
other  purely  artistic.  And  the  danger  is  the  more 
subtle  because  the  higher  the  character  is,  the 
more  there  must  necessarily  be  of  the  purely 
artistic  penitence. 

The  effect  is,  that  self  gets  in  to  what  ought  to 
be  the  most  genuine  experience  of  life,  makes 
the  most  perfect  imitation  of  it,  and  transforms 
the  greatest  opportunities  for  recovery  into  the 
basest  ministry  to  pride.  The  true  experience, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  a  touching  lesson  in  human 
helplessness ;  teaching  him  God  has  to  come  to 
man's  relief  at  every  turn  of  his  life,  and  how  the 
same  hand  which  provides  his  pardon  has  actually 
to  draw  him  to  the  place  of  penitence. 

It  is  God  looking  into  the  sinner's  face  that 
has  introduced  a  Christian  element  into  human 
sorrow.  And  Paul,  in  making  the  Christian 
vocabulary,  had  to  coin  a  word  which  was  strange 
to  all  the  philosophies  of  the  world  then,  and  is 
so  still,  when  he  joined  the  conceptions  of  God 
and  Sorrow  into  one,  and  told  us  of  the  Godly- 
sorrow  which  had  the  marvellous  virtue  of  work- 
ing repentance  not  to  be  repented  of.  And  it  is 
this  new  and  sacred  sorrow  which  comes  to  sinful 
men  as  often  as  the  Lord  turns  and  looks  upon 
their  life;  it  is  this  which  adds  the  penitential 
incense  of  true  penitence  to  the  sacrifice  of  a 
broken  and  contrite  heart.  That  was  a  great  dis- 
tinction which  Luke  brings  out,  in  the  prodigal's 
life,  between  coming  to  himself  and  coming  to  his 


PENITENCE  251 

father.  "  He  came  to  himself,"  and  then,  says 
Luke,  "  he  came  to  his  father."  So  we  are  ahvays 
coming  to  ourselves.  We  are  always  finding 
out,  like  the  prodigal,  the  miserable  bargains  we 
have  made.  But  it  is  only  when  we  come  to  our 
Father  that  we  can  get  them  undone  and  the  real 
debt  discharged. 

(2)  But  now,  secondly,  we  come  to  the  sensi- 
tiveness of  penitence.  Or  rather,  perhaps,  we 
should  talk  of  the  sensitiveness  of  the  penitent 
human  soul.  The  Lord  turned  and  looked  upon 
Peter.  There  is  nothing  more  sensitive  in  all  the 
world  than  a  human  soul  which  has  once  been 
quickened  into  its  delicate  life  by  the  touch  of  the 
divine.  Men  seldom  estimate  aright  the  exquisite 
beauty  and  tenderness  of  a  sinner's  heart.  We 
apply  coarse  words  to  move  it,  and  coarse,  harsh 
stimulants  to  beat  it  into  life.  And  if  no  answer 
comes  we  make  the  bludgeon  heavier  and  the 
language  coarser  still,  as  if  the  soul  were  not  too 
fine  to  respond  to  weapons  so  blunt  as  these. 
There  is  coarseness  in  the  fibres  of  the  body,  and 
these  may  be  moved  by  blows ;  and  there  is 
coarseness  in  human  nature,  and  that  may  be 
roused  with  threats;  but  the  soul  is  fine  as  a 
breath,  and  will  preserve,  through  misery  and 
cruelty  and  sin,  the  marvellous  delicacy  which 
tells  how  near  it  lies  to  the  spirit  of  God  who 
gave  it  birth.  Peter  was  naturally,  perhaps,  the 
coarsest  of  all  the  disciples.  Our  picture  of  him 
is  of  a  strong-built,  sun-tanned  fisherman,  robust 


252  PENITENCE 

and  fearless  in  disposition,  quick-tempered  and 
rash,  a  man  who  would  bluster  and  swear  —  as 
we  know  he  did  —  a  wild  man  who  had  the 
making  of  a  memorable  sinner  had  not  God  made 
him  a  memorable  saint.  But  inside  this  wild 
breast  there  lay  a  most  lovely  and  delicate  plant 
—  the  most  tender  plant,  perhaps,  but  one  which 
God  had  growing  on  the  earth.  With  His  own 
hand  He  had  placed  it  there.  With  His  own 
breath  He  nourished  it  from  day  to  day;  and 
already  the  storms  in  the  wild  breast  were  calmed 
and  tempered  for  the  holy  flower  which  had 
begun  to  send  a  perfume  through  even  coarse 
Peter's  life.  It  always  purifies  a  man  to  have  a 
soul,  and  there  is  no  such  beauty  of  character  as 
that  which  comes  out  in  unconscious  ways  from 
a  hfe  made  fine  by  Christ. 

So  God  did  not  thunder  and  lighten  to  make 
Peter  hear  His  voice.  God  knew  that  though 
Peter  was  blustering  and  swearing  with  his  lips, 
there  was  dead  silence  in  his  soul.  A  whisper 
at  that  moment  —  that  moment  of  high-strung 
feeling  —  a  whisper,  even  at  that  moment,  was 
not  fine  enough  in  its  touch  for  this  exquisitely 
sensitive  spirit ;  so  the  Lord  turned  and  looked. 
A  look,  and  that  was  all.  But  it  rent  his  heart  as 
lightning  could  not,  and  melted  into  his  soul. 

There  is  a  text  in  the  Psalms  which  uses  the 
strange  expression  of  "the  gentleness"  of  God. 
We  wonder  sometimes  when  God  is  so  great,  so 
terrible  in  majesty,  that  He  uses  so  little  violence 


PENITENCE  253 

with  us,  who  are  so  small.  But  it  is  not  His  way. 
His  way  is  to  be  gentle.  He  seldom  drives ;  but 
draws.  He  seldom  compels  ;  but  leads.  He 
remembers  we  are  dust.  We  think  it  might  be 
quicker  work  if  God  threatened  and  compelled  us 
to  do  right.  But  God  does  not  want  quick  work, 
but  good  work.  God  does  not  want  slave  work, 
but  free  work.  So  God  is  gentle  with  us  all  — 
moulding  us  and  winning  us  many  a  time  with  no 
more  than  a  silent  look.  Coarse  treatment  never 
wins  souls.  So  God  did  not  drive  the  chariot  of 
His  omnipotence  up  to  Peter  and  command  him 
to  repent.  God  did  not  threaten  him  with  the 
thunderbolts  of  punishment.  God  did  not  even 
speak  to  him.  That  one  look  laid  a  spell  upon 
his  soul  which  was  more  than  voice  or  language 
through  all  his  after  life. 

Here,  then,  are  two  great  lessons  —  the  gentle- 
ness of  God,  and  the  gentleness  of  the  soul  —  the 
one  as  divine  a  marvel  as  the  other.  God  may  be 
dealing  with  us  in  some  quiet  way  just  now,  and 
we  not  knowing  it.  So  mysteriously  has  all  our 
life  been  shaped,  and  so  unobtrusive  the  fingers 
which  mould  our  will,  that  we  scarce  believe  it 
has  been  the  hand  of  God  at  all.  But  it  is  God's 
gentleness.  And  the  reason  why  God  made  Peter's 
heart  sensitive,  and  yours  and  mine,  was  to  meet 
this  gentleness  of  His. 

Yes;  we  misunderstand  God  altogether,  and 
religion,  if  we  think  God  deals  coarsely  with 
our  souls.     If  we  ask  ourselves  what  things  have 


254  PENITENCE 

mainly  influenced  our  life,  we  find  the  answer  in  a 
few  silent  voices  which  have  preached  to  us,  and 
winds  which  passed  across  our  soul  so  gently  that 
we  scarce  could  tell  when  they  were  come  or  gone. 
The  great  physical  forces  of  the  world  are  all  silent 
and  unseen.  The  most  ponderous  of  all  —  gravita- 
tion —  came  down  the  ages  with  step  so  noiseless 
that  centuries  of  wise  men  had  passed  away  be- 
fore an  ear  was  quick  enough  to  detect  its  footfall. 
And  the  great  spiritual  forces  which  startle  men 
into  thoughts  of  God  and  right,  which  make  men 
remember,  in  the  rush  of  the  world's  life,  that  they 
have  souls,  which  bring  eternity  near  to  us,  when 
time  is  yet  sweet  and  young,  are  not  the  warnings 
from  the  dead  who  drop  at  our  side  so  much,  nor 
the  threats  of  judgment  to  come,  nor  the  retribu- 
tions of  the  life  that  is ;  but  still  small  voices,  which 
penetrate  like  Peter's  look  from  Christ,  and  turn 
man's  sensitive  heart  to  God.  The  likeness  of  a 
long-dead  mother's  face,  the  echo  of  a  children's 
hymn  laden  with  pure  memories,  coming  over 
the  guilty  years  which  lie  between,  the  fragments 
of  an  old,  forgotten  text.  These  are  the  messen- 
gers which  Heaven  sends  to  call  the  world  to  God. 
Let  those  who  are  waiting  for  Christ  to  thunder 
at  their  door  before  they  will  let  Him  in,  remem- 
ber that  the  quiet  service  of  the  Sabbath  Day, 
and  the  soft  whisper  of  text  and  Psalm,  and  the 
plaint  of  conscience,  and  the  deep,  deep  heart- 
wish  to  be  whole,  are  Christ's  ways  of  looking  for 
them.     Let  workers  for  Christ  remember  this. 


PENITENCE  255 

In  our  soul,  let  us  think  how  God  may  be  turning 
and  looking  upon  us,  and  searching  our  hearts, 
like  Peter's,  for  signs  of  penitence. 

Let  those  who  try  to  keep  their  influence  for 
Christ,  ponder  Christ's  methods  of  influence. 
Let  those  who  live  in  the  shade,  whose  lives  are 
naturally  bounded  by  timidity  and  reserve,  be 
glad  that,  in  the  genius  of  Christianity,  there  is  a 
place  for  even  the  Gospel  of  the  Face.  And  let 
those  who  live  in  the  battle,  when  coarser  weapons 
fail,  discern  the  lesson  of  Elijah :  —  "A  great  and 
strong  wind  rent  the  mountains,  and  brake  in 
pieces  the  rocks  before  the  Lord ;  but  the  Lord 
was  not  in  the  wind :  and  after  the  wind,  an  earth- 
quake ;  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  earthquake  : 
and  after  the  earthquake  a  fire  ;  but  the  Lord  ivas 
not  in  the  fire :  and  after  the  fire  a  still  small 
voice"  (i  Kings  xix.  11). 

(3)  Thirdly  and  briefly,  for  the  truth  is  obvious, 
we  learn  from  Peter's  recovery  that  spiritual  expe- 
rience is  intejise.  Peter  wept  bitterly.  And  this 
short  sentence  for  ever  settles  the  question  of 
emotion  in  religion.  When  the  Lord  turned  and 
looked  upon  Peter,  and  memory  crushed  into 
one  vivid  moment  the  guilt  of  those  never-to-be- 
forgotten  hours,  what  else  could  Peter  do  than 
weep  bitterly?  Let  memory  so  work  on  any  of 
our  lives  to-day,  and  let  the  eye  of  the  Eternal 
bring  the  naked  truth  from  out  our  past,  and  let 
us  ask  if  "  bitterly  "  is  a  word  too  strong  to  express 
the  agony  of  God's  discovery  of  our  sin.     Much 


256  PENITENCE 

need,  indeed,  had  Peter  to  weep  bitterly;  and  if 
there  are  no  bitter  tears  betimes  in  our  religious 
life,  it  is  not  because  we  have  less  of  Peter's  sin, 
but   little  of  Peter's    grace. 

It  is  vain  to  console  ourselves  by  measuring,  as 
we  try  to  do,  the  small  size  of  the  slips  we  make 
as  compared  with  his.  There  is  such  a  thing  in 
the  world  as  a  great  sin,  but  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  small  sin.  The  smallest  sin  is  a  fall,  and  a 
fall  is  a  fall  from  God,  and  to  fall  from  God  is  to 
fall  the  greatest  height  in  the  universe.  The  pub- 
licity of  a  sin  has  nothing  to  do  with  its  size. 
Our  fall  last  week,  or  yesterday,  or  to-day,  was 
just  as  great,  perhaps,  as  Peter's  fall,  or  David's, 
or  Noah's,  or  Jacob's,  or  the  many  private  sins 
which  history  has  made  public  examples,  or  the 
Bible  placed  as  beacons  to  all  the  race. 

Every  sin  that  was  ever  done  demands  a  bitter 
penitence.  And  if  there  is  little  emotion  in  a 
man's  religion,  it  is  because  there  is  little  intro- 
spection. Religion  without  emotion  is  religion 
without  reflection.  Religion  without  emotion  is 
religion  without  reflection.  Let  a  man  sit  calmly 
down  to  think  about  his  life.  Let  him  think  how 
God  has  dealt  with  him  since  ever  he  lisped 
God's  name.  Let  him  add  to  that  how  he  has 
dealt  with  God  since  ever  he  could  sin.  And  as 
he  turns  over  the  secrets  of  the  past,  and  forgot- 
ten sins  come  crowding  one  by  one  into  his 
thoughts,  can  he  help  a  strong  emotion  rising  in 
his   heart,   and   shedding  itself   in  tears?     Yes; 


PENITENCE  257 

religion  without  emotion  is  religion  without  re- 
flection. And,  conversely,  the  man  who  gives 
himself  to  earnest  thought  upon  his  ways  will 
always  have  enough  emotion  to  generate  religious 
fervour  in  his  soul. 

Only  let  religious  emotion  run  in  the  right 
channel,  let  it  work  itself  out  in  action  and  not  in 
excited  feeling,  let  it  be  something  more  than 
nervous  agitation  or  a  mere  fear,  and  there  is  no 
experience  more  purifying  to  the  soul.  No 
doubt  it  was  a  great  thing  for  Peter  that  he  wept 
bitterly,  and  no  doubt  from  the  bitterness  of  that 
night  of  penitence  came  much  of  the  sweetness 
that  hallowed  his  after  life. 

(4)  Fourthly,  and  lastly,  penitence  is  a  lonely 
thing.  Peter  went  out.  When  the  Lord  turned 
He  looked  upon  Peter.  No  one  else  noticed  the 
quiet  glance  that  was  exchanged.  But  it  did  its 
work.  It  singled  out  one  man  in  a  moment,  and 
cut  him  off  from  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  "  And 
Peter  went  out^  And  there  was  no  man  beneath 
the  firmament  of  God  that  night  so  much  alone 
as  Peter  with  his  sin. 

Men  know  two  kinds  of  loneliness  it  has  been 
said  —  a  loneliness  of  space  and  a  loneliness  of 
spirit.  The  fisherman  in  his  boat  on  the  v/ide 
sea  knows  loneliness  of  space.  But  it  is  no  true 
loneliness.  For  his  thoughts  have  peopled  his 
boat  with  forms  of  those  he  loves.  But  Peter's 
was  loneliness  of  spirit.  A  distance  wider  than 
the  wide  sea  cut  off  the  denier  from  all  fellowship 
17 


258  PENITENCE 

of  man,  and  left  him  to  mourn  alone.     All  this 
is  spiritual  truth. 

When  God  speaks  He  likes  no  other  voice  to 
break  the  stillness  but  His  own.  And  hence 
the  place  that  has  always  been  given  to  solitude 
in  all  true  religious  life.  It  can  be  overdone, 
but  it  can  be  grossly  underdone.  And  there  is 
no  lesson  more  worth  insisting  on  in  days  like 
ours  than  this,  that  when  God  wants  to  speak 
with  a  man  He  wants  that  man  to  be  alone. 
And  God  develops  the  germ  of  the  recluse 
enough  in  all  true  Christian  hearts  to  see  that 
it  is  done.  "Talent  forms  itself  in  solitude," 
says  the  German  poet;  "character  amidst  the 
storms  of  life."  And  if  religious  character  is 
developed  and  strengthened  in  the  battle  of  the 
world,  it  is  no  less  true  that  religious  talents 
are  cultivated  in  quiet  contemplation  and  com- 
munion alone  with  God.  Than  the  worshippers 
who  do  all  their  religion  in  public  there  are 
none  more  profoundly  to  be  pitied ;  and  he  who 
knows  not  what  it  is  to  go  out  from  the  crowd 
sometimes  and  be  alone  with  God  is  a  stranger 
to  the  most  Divine  experience  that  comes  to 
sanctify  a  Christian's  heart. 

But  what  gave  the  beauty  to  Peter's  loneliness 
was  this^ — -that  he  took  God's  time  to  be  alone. 
Peter's  penitence  was  not  only  an  intense  thing 
and  a  lonely  thing,  it  was  an  immediate  thing. 
Peter  need  not  have  gone  out  that  time.  He 
might  have  stood  where  he  was,  and  braved  it 


PENITENCE  259 

out.  God  has  looked  at  us  when  we  were  sin- 
ning; and  we  did  not  do  as  Peter  did.  He  lost 
no  time  between  his  penitence  and  his  sin.  But 
we  spoil  the  grace  of  our  penitence  many  a  time 
by  waiting  till  the  sin  grows  old.  We  do  it  on 
purpose.  Time  seems  to  smooth  the  roughness 
off  our  sin  and  take  its  bitterness  away.  And 
we  postpone  our  penitence  till  we  think  the  edge 
is  off  the  sharpness  of  the  wrong.  As  if  time, 
as  if  eternity  could  ever  make  a  sinner's  sin  less 
black.  Sin  is  always  at  its  maximum.  And  no 
man  ever  gets  off  with  penitence  at  its  minimum. 
The  time  for  penitence  is  just  the  time  when  we 
have  sinned.  And  that  perhaps  is  now.  Peter's 
penitence  came  sharp  upon  his  sin.  It  was  not 
on  his  death-bed  or  in  his  after  life.  But  just 
when  he  had  sinned.  Many  a  man  who  post- 
pones his  penitence  till  he  cannot  help  it,  post- 
pones his  penitence  till  it  cannot  help  him,  and 
will  not  see  the  Lord  turning  till  He  turns  and 
looks  upon  him  in  judgment.  Then,  indeed,  he 
goes  out  to  weep.  But  it  is  out  into  that  night 
which  knows  no  dawn. 

Such  are  the  lessons  from  Peter's  penitence. 
Just  one  word  more. 

When  God  speaks  He  speaks  so  loud  that  all 
the  voices  of  the  world  seem  dumb.  And  yet 
when  God  speaks  He  speaks  so  softly  that  no 
one  hears  the  whisper  but  yourself.  To-day, 
perhaps,  as  the  service  has  gone  on,  the  Lord 
has  turned  and  looked  on  some  one  here.     And 


26o  PENITENCE 

the  soul  of  some  one  has  gone  out  to  weep.  No 
one  noticed  where  the  Lord's  glance  fell,  and 
no  one  knows  in  the  church  that  it  was  — yoiL. 
You  sit  there  in  your  wonted  place.  But  your 
spirit  is  far  away  just  now,  dealing  with  some 
old  sin,  and  God  is  giving  you  a  lesson  Himself 
—  the  bitterest,  yet  the  sweetest  lesson  of  your 
life,  in  heartfelt  penitence.  Come  not  back  into 
the  crowd  till  the  Lord  has  turned  and  looked 
on  you  again,  as  He  looked  at  the  thief  upon  the 
cross,  and  you  have  beheld  the  "glory  of  the  love 
of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus." 


NUMBER  XIII 

What  is   God's  Will? 

"  The  God  of  our  fathers  hath  chosen    thee  that  thou 
shottldest  know  His  will."  —  Acts  xxii.   14. 

T  AST  Sunday  evening  I  was  trying  to  show 
■*— '  you  that  the  end  of  religion  was  to  do  the 
will  of  God.  Some  time  ago  I  showed  you  Hke- 
wise  that  the  cjid  of  life  was  to  do  the  will  of 
God,  and  that  the  end  of  Christ's  life  lay  in  this 
too.  "  I  come,"  He  said,  "  to  do  the  will  of  Him 
that  sent  Me." 

We  resume  to-day  a  subject,  the  thread  of 
which  has  been  broken  by  the  interval  of  a  few 
Sabbaths  —  the  subject  of  the  Will  of  God. 

Already  we  have  tried  to  learn  two  lessons :  — 

1.  That  the  end  of  our  life  is  to  do  the  will  of 
God. 

2.  That  this  was  the  end  of  Christ's  life. 

It  will  help  to  recall  what  has  gone  before  if  we 
compare  this  with  another  definition  of  the  end  of 
life  with  which  we  are  all  familiar. 

Of  course  this  is  not  the  most  complete  state- 
ment of  the  end  of  our  life;   but  it  is  the  most 


262  WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL? 

practical,  and  it  will  recall  the  previous  conclu- 
sions if  we  refer  to  this  for  a  moment. 

Our  Shorter  Catechism,  for  instance,  puts  the 
end  of  life  quite  in  different  words.  "  Man's  chief 
end,"  it  says,  "  is  to  glorify  God  and  enjoy  Him 
for  ever."  But  this  answer  is  just  too  great  for 
us.  There  is  too  much  in  it.  It  is  really  the 
same  answer,  but  turned  towards  God.  It  is  too 
great  to  understand.  It  is  as  true,  but  too  pro- 
foundly true.  It  is  wonderfully  conceived  and  put 
together,  but  it  goes  past  us.  It  expresses  the 
end  of  life  God-ward  —  determines  the  quality  of 
all  the  things  we  do  by  the  extent  to  which  they 
make  way  in  the  world  for  the  everywhere  coming 
glory  of  God.  But  this  is  too  wonderful  for  us. 
We  want  a  principle  life-ward  as  well  as  God- 
Vv^ard.  We  want  something  to  tell  us  what  to 
do  with  the  things  beneath  us  and  around  us 
and  within  us,  as  well  as  the  things  above  us. 
Therefore  there  is  a  human  side  to  the  Shorter 
Catechism's  answer. 

What  is  the  chief  end  of  man? 

Man's  chief  end  is  to  do  the  will  of  God. 

In  one  sense  this  is  not  such  a  Divine  answer. 
But  we  are  not  divine.  We  understand  God's 
will —  God's  glory  only  faintly.  We  are  only 
human  yet,  and  "  glory  "  is  a  word  for  heaven. 

Ask  a  schoolboy,  learning  the  first  question  in 
the  Catechism,  to  do  a  certain  thing  for  the  glory 
of  God.  The  opportunity  of  doing  the  thing 
may  be  gone  before  the  idea  can  be  driven  into 


WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL?  263 

the  boy's  head  of  what  the  glory  of  God  means. 
But  tell  him  to  do  the  thing  because  it  is  God's 
will  that  he  should  do  it  —  he  understands  that. 
He  knows  that  God's  will  is  just  what  God  likes, 
and  what  he  himself  probably  does  not  like. 
And  the  conception  of  it  from  this  side  is  so 
clear  that  no  schoolboy  even  need  miss  the  end 
of  life—  for  that  is  simply  doing  what  God  likes. 
If  our  souls  are  not  great  enough,  then,  to  think 
of  God's  glory  as  the  practical  rule  of  life,  let  them 
not  be  too  small  to  think  of  God's  will.  And  if 
we  look  after  the  end  of  life  from  this  side,  God 
will  from  the  other.  Do  we  the  will  of  God,  God 
will  see  that  it  glorifies  God, 

Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  after  casting  about 
for  an  object  in  life,  we  have  at  last  stopped  at 
this  —  the  end  of  my  life  is  to  do  the  will  of  God. 
Let  us  suppose  also  that  we  have  got  over  the 
disappointment  of  finding  that  there  is  nothing 
higher  for  us  to  do  in  the  world.  Or,  perhaps, 
taking  the  other  side,  suppose  we  are  beginning 
to  feel  the  splendid  conviction  that,  after  all,  our 
obscure  life  is  not  to  be  wasted :  that  having  this 
ideal  principle  within  it,  it  may  yet  be  as  great  in 
its  homely  surroundings  as  the  greatest  human 
life  —  seeing  that  no  man  can  do  more  with  his 
life  than  the  will  of  God  —  that  though  we  may 
never  be  famous  or  powerful  or  called  to  heroic 
suffering  or  acts  of  self-denial  which  will  vibrate 
through  history:  that  though  we  are  neither 
intended    to    be    apostles    nor    missionaries    not 


264  WHAT  IS   GOD'S  WILL? 

martyrs,  but  to  be  common  people  living  in 
common  houses,  spending  the  day  in  common 
offices  or  common  kitchens,  yet  doing  the  will  of 
God  there,  we  shall  do  as  much  as  apostle  or 
missionary  or  martyr  —  seeing  that  they  can  do 
no  more  than  do  God's  will  where  they  are,  even 
as  we  can  do  as  much  where  we  are  —  and  answer 
the  end  of  our  life  as  truly,  faithfully,  and  trium- 
phantly as  they. 

Suppose  we  feel  all  this,  and  desire,  as  we  stand 
on  the  threshold  of  the  truly  ideal  life,  that,  God 
helping  us,  we  shall  live  it  if  we  may,  we  are  met  at 
once  with  the  question,  How  are  we  ever  to  know 
what  the  will  of  God  can  be  ?  The  chief  end  of 
life  is  to  do  the  will  of  God.  Question  :  How 
am  I  to  know  the  will  of  God  —  to  know  it  clearly 
and  definitely?     Is  it  possible?  and  if  so,  how  ? 

Now,  to  begin  with,  we  have  probably  an 
opinion  on  the  matter  already.  And  if  you  were 
to  express  it,  it  would  be  this :  that  it  is  not  pos- 
sible. You  have  thought  about  the  will  of  God, 
and  read  and  thought,  and  thought  and  read,  and 
you  have  come  to  this  conclusion,  that  the  will 
of  God  is  a  very  mysterious  thing  —  a  very  mys- 
terious thing,  which  some  people  may  have  re- 
vealed to  them,  but  does  not  seem  in  any  way 
possible  to  you. 

Your  nature  is  different  from  other  people's; 
and  though  you  have  strained  your  eyes  in  prayer 
and  thought,  you  have  never  seen  the  will  of  God 
yet.     And  if  you  ever  have  been  in  the  same  line 


WHAT   IS   GOD'S  WILL?  265 

with  it,  it  has  only  been  by  chance,  for  you  can 
see  no  principle  in  it,  nor  any  certainty  of  ever 
being  in  the  same  line  again.  One  or  two  special 
occasions,  indeed,  you  can  recall  when  you  think 
you  were  near  the  will  of  God,  but  they  must  have 
been  special  interpositions  on  God's  part.  He 
does  not  show  His  will  every  day  like  that:  once 
or  twice  only  in  a  lifetime,  that  is  enough  of  this 
high  experience  one  ever  dare  expect. 

Now,  of  course,  if  this  is  true,  it  is  clearly  no 
use  going  on  to  find  out  what  God's  will  is  if  the 
thing  is  impossible.  If  this  experience  is  correct 
—  and  we  cannot  know  God's  will  for  the  mystery 
of  it — ^  we  may  as  well  give  up  the  ideal  life  at 
once.  But  if  you  examined  this  experience,  even 
cursorily,  you  would  find  at  once  how  far  away 
from  the  point  it  was. 

1.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  merely  an  experience ; 
it  is  exclusively  based  qw  yo7ir  own  experience,  not 
on  God's  thoughts  regarding  it,  but  on  your  own 
thoughts.     The  true  name  for  this  Is presnmpiion. 

2.  It  assumes  that,  the  end  of  life  being  to  do 
God's  will,  and  you  not  being  able  to  know  God's 
will,  are  therefore  not  responsible  for  fulfilling  the 
end  of  life.     This  is  self-deception. 

3.  It  suggests  the  idea  that  God  could  teach 
you  His  will  if  He  liked,  seeing  that  He  had  done 
so  once  or  twice  by  your  own  admission.  And 
yet,  though  He  wants  you  to  do  His  will,  and  3'ou 
want  it  too,  He  deliberately  refuses  to  tell  you 
what  it  is.     This  is  an  accusation  ao^ainst  God. 


266  WHAT  IS   GOD'S   WILL? 

It  is  something  worse  than  unreasonable,  there- 
fore, to  say  that  we  think  it  hopeless  for  us  ever 
to  know  God's  will.  On  the  contrary,  indeed, 
there  is  a  strong  presumption  that  we  should  find 
it  out.  For  if  it  is  so  important  a  thing  that  the 
very  end  of  life  is  involved  in  it,  it  would  be 
absurd  to  imagine  that  God  should  keep  us  even 
the  least  in  the  dark  as  to  what  His  will  may 
mean. 

And  this  presumption  is  changed  into  a  cer- 
tainty when  we  balance  our  minds  for  a  moment 
on  the  terms  of  this  text.  "  The  God  of  our  fa- 
thers hath  chosen  thee,  that  thou  shouldest  know 
His  v/ill."  It  is  not  simply  a  matter  of  presump- 
tion, it  is  a  matter  of  election.  Have  you  ever 
thought  of  this  strange,  deep  calling  of  God? 
We  are  called  to  salvation,  we  have  thought  of 
that;  we  are  called  to  holiness,  we  have  thought 
of  that ;  but  as  great  as  either  is  this,  we  are 
called  to  know  God's  will.  We  are  answering 
our  call  in  other  ways ;  are  we  answering  it  in 
this:  What  is  God's  will  .-*  y4;r  we  knowing  God's 
will  ?  How  much  have  we  learned  of  that  to  which 
we  have  been  called  .''  And  is  it  our  prayer  con- 
tinually, as  it  was  his  to  whom  these  words  were 
said,  that  we  may  be  "  filled  with  the  knowledge 
of  His  will"? 

It  is  a  reasonable  object  of  search,  then,  to  find 
out  what  God's  will  for  us  may  be.  And  it  is  a 
reasonable  expectation  that  we  may  find  it  out  so 
fully  as  to  know  at  any  moment  whether  we  be 


WHAT   IS   GOD'S  WILL?  267 

in  the  line  of  it  or  no ;  and  when  difficulty  arises 
about  the  next  step  of  our  hfe,  we  may  have 
absolute  certainty  which  way  God's  will  inclines. 
There  are  many  kinds  of  assurance  in  religion ; 
and  it  is  as  important  to  have  assurance  of  God's 
will  as  to  have  assurance  of  God's  salvation.  For 
just  as  the  loss  of  assurance  of  salvation  means 
absence  of  peace  and  faith,  and  usefulness,  so 
absence  of  assurance  of  God's  will  means  miser- 
able Christian  life,  imperfect  Christian  character, 
and  impaired  Christian  usefulness. 

We  start  our  investigation,  therefore,  in  the  be- 
lief that  God  tnust  have  light  for  all  of  us  on  the 
subject  of  His  will,  and  with  the  desire  to  have 
assurance  in  the  guidance  of  our  life  by  God  as 
clear  and  strong  as  of  its  redemption  and  salva- 
tion by  Christ. 

In  one  sense,  of  course,  no  man  can  know  the 
will  of  God,  even  as  in  one  sense  no  man  can 
know  God  Himself.  God's  will  is  a  great  and  in- 
finite mystery  —  a  thing  of  mighty  mass  and 
volume,  which  can  no  more  be  measured  out  to 
hungry  souls  in  human  sentences  than  the  eternal 
knowledge  of  God  or  the  boundless  love  of  Christ. 
But  even  as  there  is  a  sense  in  which  one  poor 
human  soul  can  hold  enough  of  the  eternal 
knowledge  of  God  and  the  boundless  love  of 
Christ,  so  is  there  a  sense  in  which  God  can  put 
as  much  of  His  will  into  human  words  as  human 
hearts  can  bear  —  as  much  as  human  wills  can 
will  or  human  lives  perform. 


268  WHAT    IS   GOD'S   WILL? 

When  we  come  to  put  this  will  into  human 
words  we  find  that  it  divides  itself  into  two  great 
parts. 

I.  There  is  a  part  of  God's  will  which  every 
one  may  know  —  a  universal  part. 

II.  A  part  of  God's  will  which  no  one  knows 
but  you  —  a  particular  part. 

(i)  A  universal  part — for  every  one.  (2)  A 
particular  part  —  for  the  individual, 

I.  To  begin  with  the  first.  There  is  a  part  of 
God's  will  which  every  one  may  know.  It  is 
written  in  Divine  characters  in  two  sacred  books, 
which  every  man  may  read.  The  one  of  them 
is  the  Bible,  the  other  is  Nature.  The  Bible  is 
God's  will  in  words,  in  formal  thoughts,  in  grace. 
Nature  is  God's  will  in  matter  and  tissue  and  force. 
Nature  is  not  often  considered  a  part  of  God's 
will.  But  it  is  a  part,  and  a  great  part,  and  the 
first  part.  And  perhaps  one  reason  why  some 
never  know  the  second  is  because  they  yield  no 
full  obedience  to  the  first.  God's  law  of  progress 
is  from  the  lower  to  the  higher ;  and  scant  obedi- 
ence at  the  beginning  of  His  will  means  disobedi- 
ence with  the  rest.  The  laws  of  nature  are  the 
will  of  God  for  our  bodies.  As  there  is  a  will  of 
God  for  our  higher  nature  —  the  moral  laws  — 
as  emphatically  is  there  a  will  of  God  for  the 
lower — the  natural  laws.  If  you  would  know 
God's  will  in  the  higher,  therefore,  you  must  be- 
gin with  God's  Vv'ill  in  the  lower:  which  simply 
means  this  —  tliat  if  you  want  to  live  the  ideal 


WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL?  269 

life,  you  must  begin  with  the  ideal  body.  The 
law  of  moderation,  the  law  of  sleep,  the  law  of 
regularity,  the  law  of  exercise,  the  law  of  cleanli- 
ness —  this  is  the  law  or  will  of  God  for  you. 
This  is  the  first  law,  the  beginning  of  will  for  you. 
And  if  we  are  ambitious  to  get  on  to  do  God's 
will  in  the  higher  reaches,  let  us  respect  it  as 
much  in  the  lower;  for  there  may  be  as  much  of 
God's  will  in  minor  things,  as  much  of  God's  will 
in  taking  good  bread  and  pure  water,  as  in  keep- 
ing a  good  conscience  or  living  a  pure  life. 
Who  ever  heard  of  gluttony  doing  God's  will,  or 
laziness,  or  uncleanness,  or  the  man  who  was 
careless  and  wanton  of  natural  life?  Let  a  man 
disobey  God  in  these,  and  you  have  no  certainty 
that  he  has  any  true  principle  for  obeying  God 
in  anything  else  :  for  God's  will  does  not  only  run 
in  to  the  church  and  the  prayer-meeting  and  the 
higher  chambers  of  the  soul,  but  into  the  com- 
mon rooms  at  home  down  to  wardrobe  and  larder 
and  cellar,  and  into  the  bodily  frame  down  to 
blood  and  muscle  and  brain. 

This,  then,  is  the  first  contribution  to  the  con- 
tents of  the  will  of  God.  And,  for  distinction, 
they  may  be  called  the  physical  contents. 

Next  in  order  we  come  to  the  moral  contents, 
both  of  these  coming  under  the  same  head  as 
parts  of  God's  will  which  every  one  may 
know. 

These  moral  contents,  as  we  have  seen,  are  con- 
tained in  the  word  of  God;  and  the  Bible  has  a 


270  WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL? 

variety  of  names  for  them,  such  as  testimonies, 
laws,  precepts,  statutes,  commandments. 

Now  this  is  a  much  more  formidable-"  array 
than  the  physical  contents.  It  is  one  thing  to 
be  in  physical  condition  —  a  prize-fighter  may 
be  that,  though  not  in  a  religious  way  —  but  it 
is  quite  another  to  be  in  moral  condition.  And 
it  is  a  difficult  matter  to  explain  exactly  what 
God's  will  in  this  great  sense  is;  for,  on  the  one 
hand,  there  is  the  danger  of  elevating  it  so  high 
as  to  frighten  the  timid  soul  from  ever  attempt- 
ing to  reach  it,  and  on  the  other  the  insensible 
tendency  to  lower  it  to  human  standards  and 
aims. 

It  must  be  understood,  however,  to  the  full 
that,  as  far  as  its  formidablencss  is  concerned, 
that  is  absolutely  unchangeable.  God's  moral 
law  cannot  be  toned  down  into  anything  less 
binding,  less  absolutely  moral,  less  infinitely 
significant.  Whatever  it  means,  is  meant  for 
every  man  in  its  rigid  truth  as  the  definite  and 
formal  expression  of  God's  will  for  him. 

From  the  moral  side  there  are  three  differ- 
ent departments  of  God's  will.  Foremost,  and 
apparently  most  rigid  of  all,  are  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments. Now  the  Ten  Commandments 
contain,  in  a  few  sentences,  one  of  the  largest- 
known  portions  of  God's  will.  They  form  the 
most  strict  code  of  morality  in  the  world :  the 
basis  of  all  others,  the  most  venerable  and  uni- 
versal  expression  of  the  will  of  God  for  man. 


WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL?  271 

Following  upon  this  (2)  there  come  the  Beati- 
tudes of  Christ.  This  is  another  large  portion 
of  God's  will.  This  forms  the  most  unique  code 
of  morality  in  the  world,  the  most  complete 
and  lovely  additional  expression  of  the  will  of 
God  for  Christians.  Passing  through  the  human 
heart  of  Christ,  the  older  commandment  of  the 
Creator  becomes  the  soft  and  mellow  beatitude 
of  the  Saviour  —  passes  from  the  colder  domain 
of  law  with  a  penalty  on  failure,  to  the  warm 
region  of  love  with  a  benediction  on  success. 
These  are  the  two  chief  elements  in  the  moral 
part  of  the  will  of  God  for  man.  But  there  is  a 
third  set  of  laws  and  rules,  which  are  not  to  be 
found  exactly  expressed  in  either  of  these.  The 
Ten  Commandments  and  the  Beatitudes  take  up 
most  of  the  room  in  God's  will,  but  there  are 
shades  of  precept  still  unexpressed  which  also 
have  their  place.  Hence  we  must  add  to  all 
this  mass  of  law  and  beatitude  many  more  laws 
and  many  more  beatitudes  which  lie  enclosed 
in  other  texts,  and  other  words  of  Christ,  which 
have  their  place  like  the  rest  as  portions  of  God's 
will. 

Here,  then,  we  already  know  a  great  part  of 
what  God's  will  is;  although,  perhaps,  we  have 
not  often  called  it  by  this  name.  And  it  may 
be  worth  while,  before  going  on  to  find  out  any 
more,  to  pause  for  a  moment  and  find  out  how 
to  practise  this. 

For,  perhaps,  when  we  see  how  great  a  thing 


272  WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL? 

it  is,  this  will  of  God,  our  impulse  for  the 
moment  is  to  wish  we  had  not  known.  We 
were  building  ourselves  up  with  the  idea  that 
we  were  going  to  try  this  life,  and  that  it  was 
easy  and  smooth  compared  with  the  life  we  left. 
There  was  a  better  future  opening  to  us,  with 
visions  of  happiness  and  holiness  and  even  of 
usefulness  to  God.  But  our  hopes  are  dashed 
now.  How  can  we  do  God's  will }  —  this  compli- 
cated mass  of  rules  and  statutes,  each  bristling 
with  the  certainty  of  a  thousand  breakages. 
How  can  we  keep  these  ten  grave  laws,  with 
their  unflinching  scorn  of  compromise  and  exact- 
ing obligation,  to  the  uttermost  jot  and  tittle.'' 
How  can  our  coarse  spirits  breathe  the  exquisite 
air  of  these  beatitudes,  or  fit  our  wayward  wills 
to  the  narrow  mould  of  all  these  binding  texts.? 
Can  God  know  how  weak  we  are,  and  blind 
and  biassed  towards  the  breakages,  ere  ever  we 
thought  of  Him?  Can  He  think  how  impos- 
sible it  is  to  keep  these  laws,  even  for  one  close- 
watched,  experimental  hour?  Did  Christ  really 
mean  it  —  not  some  lesser  thing  than  this  — 
when  He  taught  in  the  ideal  prayer  that  God's 
will  was  to  be  done  on  earth  even  as  it  is  done 
in  heaven? 

There  can  be  but  one  answer.  "  God  hath 
chosen  thee,  that  thou  shouldest  know  His  will." 
And  God  expects  from  each  of  us  neither  less 
nor  more  than  this.  He  knows  the  frailty  of 
our  frame;   He  remembers  we  are  dust.     And 


WHAT    IS    GOD'S   WILL?  273 

yet  sncJi  dust  that  He  has  given  each  of  us  the 
divinest  call  to  the  vastest  thin;:^  in  heaven. 
There,  by  the  side  of  our  frailty,  He  lays  down 
His  holy  will  —  lays  it  down  confidingly,  as  if  a 
child  could  take  it  in  its  grasp,  and,  as  if  He 
mean  the  child  to  fondle  it  and  bear  it  in  its 
breast,  He  says,  "  If  a  man  love  Me,  he  will 
keep  My  words." 

There  must  be  something,  therefore,  to  ease 
the  apparent  hopelessness  of  doing  this  will  of 
God  — something  to  give  us  heart  to  go  on  with 
it,  to  give  strength  to  obey  God's  call.  We 
were  not  prepared  to  find  it  running  in  to  the 
roots  of  things  like  this;  but  there  must  be 
something  brighter  somewhere  than  the  dark 
side  we  have  seen.  Well,  then,  let  us  think  for 
a  moment  on  these  points. 

1.  In  the  first  place,  there  vinst  be  such  laws. 
God  is  a  King  —  His  kingdom  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  His  people  are  His  subjects.  Sub- 
jects must  have  laws.  Therefore  we  start  with 
a  necessity.      Laws  nutst  be.     But 

2.  Who  are  afraid  of  law.-*  Good  subjects.-* 
Never.  Criminals  are  afraid  of  laws.  Who 
dread  the  laws  of  this  country,  who  cry  out 
against  them,  would  abolish  them  if  they  could.? 
Drunkards,  thieves,  murderers.  Who  love  the 
laws  of  this  country }  The  honest,  the  wise  and 
good.  Then  who  are  afraid  of  God's  laws  — 
would  abolish  them  if  they  could.''  The  wicked, 
the  profligate,    the   licentious.     But  yoit  would 


274  WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL? 

not.  The  just  and  holy,  the  pure  in  heart  and 
life  love  them,  respect  them.  More  still,  they 
demand  them.  It  would  be  no  kingdom  with- 
out them  ■ —  no  kingdom  worth  belonging  to.  If 
it  were  not  for  its  laws  of  truth  and  purity,  and 
its  promise  of  protection  from  unrighteousness 
and  sin,  it  would  have  no  charm  for  them.  It  is 
the  inaccessible  might  and  purity  of  will  in  the 
kingdom  of  God  that  draws  all  other  wills  as 
subjects  to  its  sway.  It  is  not  only  not  hard, 
therefore,  that  there  should  be  such  elements  in 
God's  will  as  law;  it  is  a  privilege.  And  it  is 
more  than  a  privilege  to  have  them.      For 

3,  It  is  a  privilege  to  do  them.  And  it  is  a 
peculiar  privilege  this.  It  consists  partly  in 
forgetting  that  they  are  laws — in  changing 
their  names,  commandment,  precept,  testimony, 
statute,  into  this  —  the  will  of  God,  No  stern- 
ness then  can  enter  v/ith  the  thought,  for  God's 
name  is  in  the  name  and  the  help  of  God,  and 
the  power  of  God,  and  the  constraining  love  of 
Christ.  This  takes  away  the  hopelessness  of 
trying  to  keep  God's  will.  It  makes  it  a  per- 
sonal thing,  a  relation  to  a  living  will,  not  to 
didactic  law. 

And  there  is,  further,  a  wonderful  provision 
near  it.  When  God  puts  down  His  great  will 
beside  me,  telling  me  to  do  it.  He  puts  down 
just  beside  it  as  great  a  thing.  His  Love,  And 
as  my  soul  trembles  at  the  fearfulness  of  will, 
Love   comes   with    its    calm    omnipotence,    and 


WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL?  275 

draws  it  to  itself;  then  takes  my  timid  will  and 
twines  it  around  His,  till  mine  is  fierce  with  pas- 
sion to  serve,  and  strong  to  do  His  will.  Just 
as  if  some  mighty  task  was  laid  to  an  infant's 
hand,  and  the  engine-grasp  of  a  giant  strength- 
ened it  with  his  own.  Where  God's  law  is,  is 
God's  love.  Look  at  Law  —  it  withers  your  very 
soul  with  its  stern,  inexorable  face.  But  look  at 
Love,  or  look  at  God's  will,  which  means  look 
at  Love's  will,  and  you  are  re-assured,  and  your 
heart  grows  strong.  No  martyr  dies  for  abstract 
truth.  For  a  person,  for  God,  he  will  die  a 
triple  death.  So  no  man  will  die  for  God's  law. 
But  for  God  he  will  do  it.  Where  God's  will, 
then,  seems  strong  to  command,  God's  love  is 
strong  to  obey.  Hence  the  profound  text,  "  Love 
is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law.  And  this  is  the  love 
of  God  that  we  keep  His  commandments,  and 
His  commandments  are  not  grievous." 

God's  will,  then,  is  as  great  as  God,  as  high  as 
heaven,  yet  as  easy  as  love.  For  love  knows  no 
hardness,  and  feels  no  yoke.  It  desires  no  yield- 
ing to  its  poverty  in  anything  it  loves.  Let  God 
be  greater,  and  His  will  sterner,  love  will  be 
stronger  and  obedience  but  more  true.  Let  not 
God  come  down  to  me,  slacken  truth  for  me, 
make  His  will  weaker  for  me :  my  interests,  as 
subject,  are  safer  with  my  King,  are  greater  with 
the  greatness  of  my  King  —  only  give  me  love, 
pure,  burning  love  and  loyalty  to  Him,  and  I 
shall  clim.b  from  law  to  law  through  grace  and 


2/6  WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL? 

glory  to  the  place  beside  the  throne  where  the 
angels  do  His  will. 

There  are  two  ways,  therefore,  of  looking  at 
God's  will  —  one  looking  at  the  love  side  of  it, 
the  other  at  the  law;  the  one  ending  in  triumph, 
the  other  in  despair;  the  one  a  liberty,  the  other 
a  slavery.  And  you  might  illustrate  this  in  a 
simple  way,  to  make  it  finally  clear  —  for  this  is 
the  hardest  point  to  hold  -^  in  some  such  way  as 
this:  — 

Suppose  you  go  into  a  workshop  occasionally, 
and  watch  the  workmen  at  their  task.  The  ma- 
jority do  their  work  in  an  uninterested,  mechan- 
ical sort  of  way.  Everything  is  done  with  the 
most  proper  exactness  and  precision  —  almost 
with  slavish  precision,  a  narrower  watch  would 
say.  They  come  exactly  at  the  hour  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  throw  down  their  work  to  a  second  ex- 
actly when  the  closing  bell  has  rung.  There  is  a 
certain  pimctiliotisness  about  them,  and  a  scrupu- 
losity about  their  work,  and  as  part  cause  of  it, 
perhaps,  you  observe  an  uncomfortable  turning 
of  the  head  occasionally  as  if  some  eye  was  upon 
them,  then  a  dogged  going  on  of  their  work  again, 
as  if  it  were  always  done  under  some  restraint. 

But  among  the  workmen  you  will  notice  one 
who  seems  to  work  on  different  principles. 
There  is  a  buoyancy  and  cheerfulness  about  him 
as  he  goes  about  his  work,  which  is  foreign  to  all 
the  rest.  You  will  see  him  at  his  place  some- 
times even  before  the  bell  has  rung,  and  if  unfin- 


WHAT   IS   GOD'S  WILL?  277 

ished  work  be  in  his  hands  when  closing  time 
has  come,  he  does  not  mind  an  extra  five  minutes 
when  all  the  others  are  gone.  What  strikes  you 
about  him  is  the  absence  of  that  ptinctiliousness 
which  marked  the  other's  work.  It  does  not 
seem  at  all  a  tyranny  to  him,  but  even  a  freedom 
and  a  pleasure ;  and  though  he  is  apparently  not 
so  mechanical  in  his  movements  as  his  mates, 
his  work  seems  better  done  and  greater,  despite 
the  ease  and  light-heartedness  which  mark  him 
through  its  course.  Now  the  difference  between 
them  is  this.  The  first  set  of  men  are  hired  work- 
men. The  man  by  himself  is  the  master'' s  son. 
Not  that  he  is  outwardly  different ;  he  is  a  common 
workman  in  a  fustian  jacket  like  the  rest.  But  he 
is  the  masters  son.  The  first  set  work  for  wages, 
come  in  at  regulation  hours,  lest  aught  be  kept 
off  their  wages,  keep  the  workshop  laws,  in  terror 
of  losing  their  place.  But  the  son  keeps  them, 
and  keeps  them  better,  not  for  wages,  but  for  love. 
So  the  Christian  keeps  the  will  or  the  laws  of 
God  because  of  the  love  of  God,  Not  because 
they  are  workshop  regulations  framed  and  hung 
up  before  him  at  every  moment  of  his  life,  but 
because  they  are  his  Master's  will.  They  are  as 
natural  to  him  as  air.  He  would  never  think  of 
not  keeping  them.  His  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of 
his  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  There  is  no  room 
for  punctiliousness  in  this  the  true  way  of  doing 
God's  will.  A  scrupulous  Christian  is  a  hired 
servant  and  not  the  Master's  son. 


2/8  WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL? 

II.  But  now,  very  briefly,  in  the  second  and 
last  place,  there  is  an  unknown  part  of  God's 
will  —  at  least,  a  part  which  is  only  known  to  you. 
There  is  God's  will  for  the  world,  and  God's  will 
for  the  individual.  There  is  God's  will  written  on 
tables  of  stones  for  all  the  world  to  read.  There 
is  God's  will  carved  in  sacred  hieroglyphic  which 
no  one  reads  but  you.  There  is  God's  will  rolling 
in  thunder  over  the  life  of  universal  man.  There 
is  God's  will  dropped  softly  on  the  believer's  ear 
in  angel  whispers  or  the  still  small  voice  of  God. 
This,  the  final  element  in  God's  will,  to  distinguish 
it  from  the  moral  and  physical  contents  which  go 
before,  one  might  call  the  more  strictly  spiritual 
content. 

This  is  a  distinct  addition  to  the  other  parts  — 
an  addition,  too,  which  many  men  ignore,  and 
other  men  deny.  But  there  is  such  a  region  in 
God's  will  —  a  region  unmapped  in  human  charts, 
unknown  to  human  books,  a  region  for  the  pure 
in  heart,  for  the  upright,  for  the  true.  It  is  a 
land  of  mystery  to  those  who  know  it  not,  a  land 
of  foolishness,  and  weaknesses,  and  delusive  sights 
and  sounds.  But  there  is  a  land  where  the  Spirit 
moves,  a  luminous  land,  a  walking  in  God's  light. 
There  is  where  God's  own  people  have  their 
breathing  from  above,  where  each  saint's  steps 
are  ordered  of  the  Lord. 

Now  this  region  may  be  distinguished  from  the 
other  regions.  For  one  thing,  by  its  secrecy.  It 
is  a  private  thing;  between  God  and  you.     You 


WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL?  279 

want  to  know  what  to  do  next  —  your  calling  in 
life,  for  instance.  You  want  to  know  what  action 
to  take  in  a  certain  matter.  You  want  to  know 
what  to  do  with  your  money.  You  want  to  know 
whether  to  go  into  a  certain  scheme  or  not.  Then 
you  enter  into  this  private  chamber  of  God's  will, 
and  ask  the  private  question,  "  Lord,  what  wouldest 
thou  have  me  to  do?" 

Then  it  is  distinguished  by  its  action.  It  con- 
cerns a  different  department  of  our  life.  The  first 
part  of  God's  will,  all  that  has  gone  before,  afifects 
our  cJiaractcr.  But  this  afifects  something  more. 
It  affects  our  career.  And  this  is  an  important 
distinction.  A  man's  career  in  life  is  almost  as 
important  as  his  character  in  life;  that  is  to  say, 
it  is  almost  as  important  to  God,  which  is  the  real 
question.  If  character  is  the  end  of  life,  then  the 
ideal  career  is  just  where  character  can  best  be 
established  and  developed,  which  means  that  a 
man  is  to  live  for  his  character.  But  if  God's  will 
is  the  end  of  life,  God  may  have  a  will  for  my 
career  as  well  as  for  my  character,  which  does  not 
mean  that  a  man  is  to  live  for  his  career,  but  for 
God's  will  /;/  his  character  through  his  career. 

I  may  want  to  put  all  my  work  upon  my  charac- 
ter. But  God  may  want  my  work  for  something 
else.  He  may  want  to  use  me,  for  instance ;  I 
may  not  know  why,  or  when,  or  how,  or  to  whom. 
But  it  is  possible  He  may  need  me,  for  some- 
thing or  other  at  some  time  or  other.  It  may 
be  all  through  my  life,  or  at  some  particular  part 


28o  WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL? 

of  my  life  which  may  be  past  now,  or  may  be 
still  to  come.  At  all  events,  I  must  hold  myself 
in  readiness  and  let  Him  trace  my  path ;  for 
though  it  does  not  look  now  as  if  He  had  any- 
thing for  me  to  do,  the  next  turn  of  the  road  may 
bring  it  ;  so  I  must  watch  the  turnings  of  the 
road  for  God.  Even  for  the  cJiance  of  God  need- 
ing me  it  is  worth  while  doing  this — the  chance 
of  Him  needing  me  even  once.  There  is  a  man 
in  Scripture  whom  God  perhaps  used  but  once. 
He  may  have  done  many  other  things  for  God ; 
still,  there  was  one  thing  God  gave  him  to  do  so 
far  overshadowing  all  other  things  that  he  seems 
to  have  done  but  this.  He  seems,  indeed,  to 
have  been  born,  to  have  lived  and  died  for  this. 
It  is  the  only  one  thing  we  know  about  him. 
But  it  is  a  great  thing.  His  name  was  Ananias. 
He  was  the  instrument  in  the  conversion  of  Paul. 
What  was  he  doing  in  Damascus  that  day,  when 
Paul  arrived  under  conviction  of  sin?  Why  was 
he  living  in  Damascus  at  all?  Because  he  was 
born  there,  and  his  father  before  him,  perhaps 
you  will  say.  Let  it  be  so.  A  few  will  be  glad 
to  cherish  a  higher  thought.  He  was  a  good 
man,  and  his  steps  were  ordered  —  by  ordinary 
means,  if  you  like — by  the  Lord.  Could  Ana- 
nias not  have  been  as  good  a  man  in  Jericho, 
or  Antioch,  or  Ephesus?  Quite  as  good.  His 
character  might  almost  have  been  the  same.  But 
his  career  would  have  been  different.  And,  pos- 
sibly, his   character   might  have   been   different 


WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL?  281 

from  the  touch  of  God  upon  his  career.  For 
when  God  comes  into  a  man's  career,  it  some- 
times makes  a  mighty  difference  on  his  charac- 
ter —  teaches  him  to  hve  less  for  character  and 
for  himself,  and  more  for  his  career  and  for  God, 
rather  more  for  both  —  more  for  his  character 
by  hving  more  for  his  career.  Gold  is  gold  wher- 
ever it  is ;  but  it  is  some  difference  to  the  world 
whether  it  make  a  communion  cup  or  gild  the 
proscenium  of  a  theatre. 

There  is  a  difference,  then,  between  God  in  char- 
acter and  God  in  career.  You  may  have  God  in 
your  character  without  having  God  in  your  career. 
Perhaps  you  should  have  been  in  London  to-day, 
perhaps  in  China.  Perhaps  you  should  have  been 
a  missionary;  perhaps  you  should  be  one  yet. 
Perhaps  you  should  have  been  in  poorer  circum- 
stances, or  in  a  different  business  altogether.  Per- 
haps you  have  chosen  a  broader  path  than  God 
would  have  willed  for  you.  Your  character  may 
not  seem  to  have  suffered ;  but  your  career  has. 
You  may  be  doing  God's  will  with  one  hand  con- 
secrated to  Christ,  and  making  your  own  auto- 
biography with  the  other  consecrated  to  self. 

Would  you  know  the  will  of  God,  then?  Con- 
sult God  about  your  career.  It  does  not  follow 
because  He  has  done  nothing  with  you  last  week 
or  last  year.  He  may  have  nothing  for  you  now. 
God's  will  in  career  is  mostly  an  unexpected  thing 
—  it  comes  as  a  surprise.  God's  servants  work 
on  short  notices.     Paul  used  to  have  to  go  off  to 


282  WHAT   IS   GOD'S   WILL? 

what  was  the  end  of  the  world  in  those  days,  on  a 
few  hours'  warning.  And  so  may  you  and  I.  It 
is  not  a  thing  to  startle  us,  to  make  us  alarmed  at, 
to  make  us  say,  "If  this  might  be  the  upshot  we 
would  let  God's  will  alone."  It  would  be  a  wonder- 
ful privilege  to  come  to  you  or  me;  yes,  a  won- 
derful privilege  that  He  should  count  us  worthy 
to  suffer  this  or  anything  more  for  Him. 

But  you  are  old,  you  say.  Ananias  was  old. 
Or  steeped  in  a  profession.  Paul  was  steeped  in 
a  profession.  Or  you  are  inexperienced  and 
young.  A  lad  came  to  Jesus  once  with  five 
loaves  and  two  small  fishes ;  but  they  fed  five 
thousand  men.  So  bring  your  lad's  experience, 
your  young  offer  of  service,  and  God  may  use 
you  to  twice  five  thousand  souls.  That  does  not 
mean  that  you  are  to  do  it.  But  be  in  God's 
counsels,  and  He  will  teach  you  whether  or  no. 

How  are  you  to  know  this  secret  will  of  God? 
It  is  a  great  question.  We  cannot  touch  it  now. 
Let  this  suffice.  It  can  be  known.  It  can  be 
known  to  you.  The  steps  of  a  good  man  are 
ordered  by  the  Lord.  "  I  will  guide  thee  with 
Mine  eye."  Unto  the  upright  in  heart  He  shall 
cause  light  to  arise  in  darkness.  This  is  not 
mysticism,  no  visionary's  dream.  It  is  not  to 
drown  the  reason  with  enthusiasm's  airy  hope  or 
supersede  the  word  of  God  with  fanaticism's  blind 
caprice.  No,  it  is  not  there.  It  is  what  Christ 
said,  "  The  sheep  hear  his  voice,  and  he  calleth 
his  own  sheep  by  name,  and  leadeth  them." 


NUMBER   XIV 

The   Relation   of  the   Will 
of  God   to   Sanctification 

"  This  is  the  will  of  God,  eveti  yotir  satictificationP 

I  Thess.  iv.  3. 

'■'■As  He  which  hath  called  you  is  holy,  so  be  ye  holy  in 
all  manner  of  conversation  j  because  it  is  writtefi,  '  Be 
ye  holy,  for  I atn  holy,''  " —  1  Pet.  i.  15,  16. 

"Z(?,  /  conic  to  do  Thy  will,  O  Cod.  .  .  .  By  the  which 
will  we  are  sanctified  through  the  offering  of  the  body 
of  Jesus  Christ  ojicefor  ally —  Heb.  x.  9,  10. 

jUR  discussion  of  the  will  of  God  landed  us 
two  Sabbaths  ago  —  perhaps  in  rather  an 
unforeseen  way — in  the  great  subject  of  sancti- 
fication. You  may  remember  that  we  then  made 
this  discovery,  that  the  end  of  sanctification,  in 
the  sense  of  consecration,  is  to  do  the  will  of  God, 
and  that  the  proof  was  based  on  these  words : 
"  Present  your  bodies  a  living  sacrifice,  holy, 
acceptable  unto  God,  and  be  not  conformed  to 
this  world."  Why?  "That  ye  may  prove  what 
is  that  good  and  acceptable  and  perfect  will  of 
God."  We  are  to  present  ourselves  to  God,  not 
because  it  is  a  pleasant  and  luxurious  thing  to 
live  in  the  state  of  consecration,  but  to  do  the 


284  THE   WILL   OF   GOD 

will  of  God.  Or,  to  sum  this  up  in  a  single 
sentence,  it  might  read  :  "  This  is  sanctification, 
even  to  prove  the  will  of  God." 

But  our  text  to-day  is  apparently  the  very 
opposite  of  this.  "  This  is  the  will  of  God,  even 
your  sanctification."  Last  day  it  looked  as  if 
sanctification  was  in  order  to  the  will  of  God ; 
now  it  looks  as  if  the  will  of  God  was  in  order 
to  sanctification. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  there  is  still  some- 
thing in  this  part  of  the  subject  which  demands 
a  clearance.  And  in  order  to  gain  this  it  will  be 
necessary  to  present  the  other  side  of  the  same 
question,  and  complete  the  view  of  the  subject  of 
holiness  itself 

There  are  in  the  Bible  two  great  meanings  to  the 
word  "  sanctification."  The  first  may  be  roughly 
called  the  Old  Testament  word.  The  second  is 
identified,  but  not  exclusively,  with  the  New. 
The  Old  Testament  meaning  had  this  peculiarity, 
that  it  did  not  necessarily  imply  any  inward 
change  in  the  heart  sanctified.  In  fact,  it  was 
not  even  necessarily  applied  to  Jicarts  at  all,  but 
to  things.  A  field  could  be  sanctified,  a  house 
could  be  sanctified,  an  altar,  a  tabernacle,  gold 
and  silver  vessels,  the  garments  of  the  priest,  the 
cities  of  refuge.  Anything,  in  short,  that  was  set 
apart  for  sacred  use  was  said  to  be  sanctified. 
But  the  New  Testament  word  had  a  deeper  mean- 
ing. It  meant  not  only  outward  consecration, 
but  inward  holiness.     It  meant  an  internal  pari- 


THE   WILL   OF    GOD  285 

fication  of  the  heart  from  all  uncleanness,  and  an 
enduing  it  with  the  holy  mind  of  Christ.  It  ^yas 
not  a  mere  separation  like  the  first,  but  a  visita- 
tion —  a  separation  from  the  lower  world,  and  a 
visitation  from  the  higher,  the  coming  in  of  God's 
Spirit  from  above  with  a  principle  of  holiness 
that  was  to  work  an  inward  likeness  to  the  char- 
acter of  God. 

The  practical  object  of  the  first  process  is 
mainly  to  put  the  thing  in  position  where  God 
can  use  it.  A  golden  candlestick  was  sanctified, 
so  that  it  might  be  of  some  use  to  God.  A  house 
was  sanctified,  so  that  it  might  be  exclusively  His 
—  to  do  what  He  liked  with.  In  like  manner  a 
man  is  consecrated  —  that  God  may  use  him.  It 
is  the  process  by  which  he  is  got  into  position 
for  God.  And  all  that  sanctification  does  for  him, 
in  the  first  sense  of  the  word,  is  so  to  put  him  in 
position  that  he  shall  always  be  within  reach  of 
God  —  that  he  shall  do  what  God  likes,  do,  that 
is  to  say,  what  God  wills. 

But  there  is  something  more  in  sanctification 
than  man's  merely  being  a  tool  in  the  hands 
of  God.  If  there  were  not,  aiitoinatons  could 
do  the  work  far  better  than  men.  They  would 
never  oppose  God's  will,  and  they  would  always 
be  in  position.  But  God's  will  has  a  reaction 
upon  the  instruments  whom  He  employs.  God's 
will  does  not  stop  with  His  will,  as  it  were. 
It  recoils  back  upon  the  person  using  it,  and 
benefits  him.     If  the  instrument  is  a  sanctified 


286  THE   WILL   OF   GOD 

cup,  or  a  sanctified  house,  it  does  not  recoil  back, 
and  make  an  internal  change  in  them ;  but  if 
it  is  a  person  who  does  God's  will,  God's  will  is 
not  only  done,  but  the  person  or  doer  is  affected. 
God  never  keeps  anything  all  to  Himself.  He 
who  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only 
begotten  Son,  does  He  not  with  Him  also  freely 
give  us  all  things?  His  Son  is  for  us,  His  love 
is  for  us.  His  will  is  for  us.  How  do  we  know 
that  it  is  for  us  .-'  Because  this  is  the  will  of  God, 
even  your  sanctification.  Whatever  else  may  be 
involved  in  it,  this  is  in  it;  whatever  else  He 
may  get  from  it,  this  is  something  which  you 
get,  your  sanctification.  "  By  the  which  will," 
as  Hebrews  says,  "  we  are  sanctified."  "  This 
is  My  will,  not  My  gain,  but  yours;  not  My 
eternal  advantage,  but  yours ;  not  My  holiness, 
but  '  your  sanctification.' "  Do  you  think  God 
wants  )^our  body  when  He  asks  you  to  present 
it  to  Him?  Do  you  think  it  is  for  His  sake  that 
He  asks  it,  that  He  might  be  enriched  by  it? 
God  could  make  a  thousand  better  with  a  breath. 
It  is  for  your  sake  He  asks  it.  He  wants  your 
gift  to  give  you  His  gift — your  gift  which  was 
just  in  the  way  of  His  gift.  He  wants  your  will 
out  of  the  way,  to  make  room  for  His  will.  You 
give  everything  to  God.  God  gives  it  all  back 
again,  and  more.  You  present  your  body  a  liv- 
ing sacrifice  that  you  may  prove  God's  will. 
You  shall  prove  it  by  getting  back  your  body 
■ —  a  glorified    body.     You  lose  the   world    that 


THE   WILL   OF   GOD  287 

you  may  prove  God's  will.  God's  will  is  that 
you  shall  gain  heaven.  This  is  the  will  of  God, 
therefore,  that  you  should  gain  heaven.  Or  this 
is  the  will  of  God  that  you  should  gain  holiness, 
for  holiness  is  heaven.  Or  this  is  the  will  of 
God,  even  your  sanctification. 

To  sum  up  these  facts,  then,  we  find  that  they 
shape  themselves  into  these  two  propositions: 

1.  That  our  sanctification,  or,  more  strictly, 
our  consecration,  is  in  order  to  the  will  of  God, 
"  to  prove  what  is  that  good  and  great  and 
acceptable  will  of  God." 

2.  That  this  reacts  upon  ourselves,  a  conspicu- 
ous part  of  God's  will  being  that  we  should  be 
personally  holy.  "  This  is  the  will  of  God,  even 
your  sanctification." 

The  first  of  these  has  already  been  discussed, 
and  now  the  question  comes  to  be  how  we  can  best 
fulfil  this  conspicuous  part  of  the  will  of  God  and 
become  holy  ourselves.  It  is  God's  will  for  all  of 
us  that  we  should  become  holy.  How  are  we  to 
become  holy  ? 

We  have  probably  asked  this  question  many 
times  already  in  our  life.  We  have  thought,  and 
read,  and  prayed  about  it,  and  perhaps  have 
never  yet  reached  the  conclusion  Jioiv  indeed  we 
are  to  become  holy.  Perhaps  the  question  has 
Ions:  ago  assumed  another  and  evasive  form  with 
us,  "  When  are  we  going  to  become  holy  ?  "  or 
perhaps  a  hopeless  form,  "  How  ever  are  we  to 
become  holy  ?  " 


288  THE   WILL   OF   GOD 

Now  the  real  way  out  of  the  difficulty  is  to  ask 
a  deeper  question  still :  "  IV/iy  do  I  want  to  be 
holy  ?  "  All  the  great  difficulties  of  religion  are 
centred  round  our  motives.  Impurities  in  a 
spiritual  stream  generally  mean  impurities  at  the 
spiritual  source.  And  all  fertility  or  barrenness 
of  soul  depend  upon  which  source  supplies  the 
streams  of  the  desires.  Our  difficulties  about 
becoming  holy,  therefore,  most  likely  lie  in  our 
reasons  for  wantmg  to  become  holy.  For  if  you 
grant  the  true  motive  to  holiness,  you  need  no 
definition  of  holiness.  True  holiness  lies  touch- 
ing the  true  motive.  We  shall  get  nearer  the 
true  roots  of  holiness,  therefore,  if  we  spend  a 
little  time  over  the  root-question :  "  Why  do  I 
want  to  be  holy  ?  " 

I.  The  first  thing  which  started  some  of  us  to 
search  for  a  better  life,  perhaps,  was  Infection. 
We  caught  an  infection  for  a  better  life  from 
some  one  we  knew.  We  were  idling  our  own 
way  through  life,  when  some  one  crossed  our 
path  —  some  one  with  high  aims  and  great  en- 
thusiasm's. We  were  taken  with  the  principles 
on  which  that  life  was  lived.  Its  noble  purpose 
charmed  us :  its  disregard  of  the  petty  troubles 
and  cares  of  life  astonished  us.  We  felt  unac- 
countably interested  in  it.  There  was  a  romance 
in  its  earnestness  and  self-denial  that  captivated 
us,  and  we  thought  we  should  like  to  take  down 
our  own  life,  and  put  it  together  again  on  this  new 
plan.     So  we  got  our  first  motive  to  holiness. 


THE   Vv^ILL  OF   GOD  289 

Now  this  was  not  a  wrong  motive  —  it  was 
only  an  imperfect  one.  It  answered  its  purpose 
—  so  far.  For  God  takes  strange  ways  to  start 
a  man's  religion.  There  is  nothing  more  remark- 
able in  the  history  of  conversion,  for  instance, 
than  the  infinite  diversity  of  answers  to  this 
question :  "  What  made  you  first  think  about 
your  soul?"  God  does  take  strange  ways  to 
start  a  man  for  heaven.  The  way  home  is  some- 
times shown  him  by  an  unexpected  finger-post; 
and  from  a  motive  so  unworthy  that  he  dare 
not  tell  it  in  after-life,  there  comes  to  many 
a  man  his  first  impulses  toward  God.  And  long 
after  he  has  begun  to  run  the  Christian  race, 
God  may  try  to  hasten  his  lagging  steps  by  the 
spur  of  a  motive  as  far  beneath  an  heir  of  heaven 
as  his  spiritual  life  is  beneath  what  it  ought 
to  be. 

But  the  principle  to  be  noted  through  it  all 
is  this, —  that  the  motives  which  God  allows  us 
to  start  on  are  not  the  ones  we  are  to  live  on. 
It  may  be  adversity  in  business  that  gives  us  a 
fresh  start.  It  may  be  affliction,  or  ambition, 
or  church-pride,  or  a  thousand  things.  But  the 
impulse  cannot  last,  and  it  cannot  carry  us  far. 
And  there  must  come  a  time  of  exchange  for 
a  higher  one  if  we  would  grow  in  grace,  or  move 
onward  into  a  holier  life.  A  man's  motive  must 
grow,  if  grace  would  grow.  And  many  a  man 
has  to  live  on  old  grace,  because  he  lives  on  an 
old  motive.  God  let  us  begin  with  a  lower  one, 
19 


290  THE   WILL   OF   GOD 

and  then  when  He  gave  us  more  grace,  it  was 
that  we  might  get  a  higher  one ;  but  we  spent 
the  grace  on  something  else,  and  our  motive  is 
no  higher  than  before.  So,  although  we  got  a 
start  in  religion,  we  were  little  the  better  of  it, 
and  our  whole  life  has  stood  still  for  want  of  a 
strong  enough  motive  to  go  on. 

2.  But  it  was  not  necessary  that  we  should 
have  caught  our  infection  from  a  fric7id.  There 
is  another  great  source  of  infection,  and  some 
of  us  are  breathing  its  atmosphere  every  day  — 
books.  We  may  have  got  our  motives  to  be  good 
from  a  book. 

We  found  in  works  on  ethics,  and  in  all  great 
poets,  and  even  perhaps  in  some  novels,  that  the 
highest  aim  of  life  was  to  be  true  and  pure  and 
good.  We  found  modern  literature  ringing  with 
the  praises  of  virtue.  By-and-by  we  began  to 
respect  it,  then  to  admire  it,  then  to  wish  for  it. 
Thus  we  caught  the  enthusiasm  for  purity  which 
has  changed  our  whole  lives,  in  a  way,  and  given 
us  a  chief  motive  to  religion. 

Well,  we  must  thank  God  for  having  given  us 
a  start,  anyhow.  It  is  something  to  have  begun. 
It  is  a  great  thing  to  have  an  enthusiasm  to  be 
true  and  pure  and  good.  Nor  will  the  Bible  ever 
be  jealous  of  any  lesser  book  which  God  may 
use  to  stir  men  up  to  a  better  life.  But  all  lesser 
books  sin  and  come  short.  And  the  greatest 
motives  of  the  greatest  of  the  lesser  books  fall  as 
far  short  of  the  glory  of  God  as  those  who  live 


THE   WILL  OF   GOD  291 

only  on  the  enthusiasms  which  are  kindled  on 
the  altar  of  modern  literature  fall  short  of  the  life 
and  mind  of  Christ.  God  may  give  these  mo- 
tives to  a  man  to  start  with.  If  he  will  not  look 
into  God's  book  for  them,  God  may  see  fit  to  put 
something  remotely  like  them  into  men's  books. 
Jesus  Christ  used  to  come  to  men  just  where 
they  were.  There  is  no  place  on  earth  so  dark 
that  the  light  of  heaven  will  not  come  to  it;  and 
there  is  no  spot  of  earth  where  God  may  not 
choose  to  raise  a  monument  of  His  love.  There 
is  always  room  anywhere  in  the  world  for  a  holy 
thought.  It  may  come  to  a  man  on  the  road- 
side, as  to  Paul ;  or  in  the  fork  of  a  sycamore 
tree,  as  to  Zacchaeus.  It  may  come  to  him  at 
his  boats,  as  to  Peter ;  or  at  his  Bible,  as  to  the 
Eunuch.  But,  whether  it  come  at  the  boats,  or 
whether  it  come  at  the  Bible,  whatever  is  good  is 
God's ;  and  men  may  be  thankful  that  the  Giver 
of  all  good  has  peopled  the  whole  earth  and  air 
and  sky  with  thoughts  of  His  glory,  and  filled 
the  world  with  voices  which  call  men  near  to 
Him,  At  the  same  time,  it  must  be  understood 
again  that  the  initial  motives  are  never  meant  to 
continue  us  far  on  the  road  to  God.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  they  never  can  continue  us  ;  and  if  a  man 
does  not  get  higher  ones,  his  religion  must,  and 
his  morality  mayy  come  to  a  bitter  end.  The 
melancholy  proof  occurs  to  every  one  in  a  mo- 
ment, that  those  who  inspire  us  with  these  almost 
Divine  enthusiasms   are,   and  have  been,    many 


292  THE   WILL   OF   GOD 

of  them,  degraded  men  and  women  themselves. 
For  if  a  man's  motives  to  goodness  are  not  higher 
than  the  enthusiasms  of  his  own  higher  nature, 
the  chances  are  that  the  appeals  of  his  lower 
nature,  in  time,  will  either  curb  or  degrade 
them. 

The  true  motive  to  holiness,  then,  is  not  to  be 
caught  from  books. 

3.  In  the  next  place,  some  of  us,  perhaps,  were 
induced  to  aim  at  a  better  life  from  prudential 
motives,  or  from  fear. 

We  had  read  in  the  Bible  a  very  startling  sen- 
tence—  "Without  holiness  no  man  shall  see  the 
Lord."  Now  we  wished  to  see  God.  And  we 
found  the  Bible  full  of  commands  to  keep  God's 
law.  So,  with  fear  and  trembling,  we  began  to 
try  to  keep  it.  Its  strictness  was  a  continual 
stimulus  to  us.  We  were  kept  watching  and 
,  praying.  We  lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  fear,  lest 
we  should  break  it.  No  doubt  this  has  done 
good  —  great  good.  Like  the  others,  it  was  not 
a  bad  motive  —  only  an  imperfect  one.  But,  like 
the  others,  it  will  have  to  be  exchanged  for  a 
higher  one,  if  true  progress  in  holy  living  is  to 
be  made. 

4.  Then  some  of  us  found  another  motive  in 
gratitjide.  The  great  love  of  God  in  Christ  had 
come  home  to  us  with  a  peculiar  power.  We  felt 
the  greatness  of  His  sacrifice  for  us,  of  His  for- 
giveness of  us.  And  we  would  try  to  return  His 
love.     So  we  set  our  hearts  with  a  gracious  pur- 


THE   WILL  OF   GOD  293 

pose  towards  God.  Our  life  and  conversation 
would  be  becoming  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  We 
would  do  for  His  sake  what  we  would  never  do  for 
our  own  sake.  But  even  a  noble  impulse  like  this 
has  failed  to  fulfil  our  heart's  desire,  and  even 
our  generosity  has  left  us  little  nearer  God. 

5.  And,  lastly,  there  is  this  other  thought  which 
has  sometimes  helped  us  onward  for  a  time  —  a 
feeling  which  comes  over  us  at  Communion  times, 
at  revival  times,  which  Christian  workers  feel  at  all 
times:  "  Here  are  we  surrounded  by  great  privi- 
leges —  singled  out  from  the  world  for  God's 
peculiar  charge.  God  comes  very  close  to  us; 
the  very  ground  is  holy  oftentimes.  What  man- 
ner of  persons  ought  we  to  be  in  all  holy  conver- 
sation and  godliness?  How  different  we  ought 
to  be  from  all  the  people  around !  How  much 
more  separate  from  every  appearance  of  evil ! 
How  softly  we  should  walk,  who  bear  the  vessels 
of  the  Lord ! 

Now  some  of  these  motives  are  very  beautiful. 
They  are  the  gifts  of  God.  Doubtless  many  have 
attained  to  a  certain  measure  of  holiness  by  em- 
ploying them.  And  they  have  at  least  awakened 
in  us  some  longings  after  God.  But  they  are  all 
deficient,  and  hopelessly  inadequate  to  carry  on 
what  sometimes  they  so  hopefully  begin. 

And  they  are  deficient  in  these  three  ways :  — 
I.    They  are  unscriptural  —  rather,  they  do  not 
convey  the  full  scriptural  truth. 


294  THE   WILL   OF   GOD 

2.  They  are  inadequate  to  produce  more  than 
a  small  degree  of  holiness. 

3.  They  never  produce  the  true  quality  of 
holiness. 

If  we  have  not  yet  had  higher  motives  than 
these,  then,  it  follows  that  our  spiritual  life  is 
being  laid  down  upon  principles  which  can  never 
in  the  nature  of  things  yield  the  results  we  had 
hoped  and  waited  for. 

We  have  been  wondering  why  our  growth  in 
grace  has  been  so  small  —  so  small,  indeed,  that 
sometimes  it  has  almost  seemed  to  cease.  And 
without  looking  at  books  or  doctrines,  as  we  look 
into  our  hearts,  we  find  one  reason,  at  least, 
— .  perhaps  the  great  one  —  that  our  motive  is 
incomplete. 

Now,  the  weakness  of  the  old  motive,  apart 
from  the  error  of  it,  consisted  in  this :  in  the  first 
place  it  wanted  autJiority  ;  in  the  second,  it  pro- 
posed no  standard.  As  regards  the  first,  there 
was  no  reason  why  one  should  strive  to  be  better. 
It  was  left  to  one's  own  discretion.  Our  friend 
said  it,  or  our  favourite  author,  and  the  obliga- 
tion rose  and  fell  with  the  nearness  or  remote- 
ness of  their  influence.  And  as  regards  the 
standard,  our  friend  or  our  favourite  author's 
favourite  hero  was  but  a  poor  model  at  the  best, 
for  only  a  most  imperfect  spiritual  beauty  can 
ever  be  copied  from  anything  made  of  clay. 

Well,  then,  what  is  the  right  motive  to  holiness 
of  life?     We   have  been  dealing  with  ordinary 


THE   WILL   OF   GOD  295 

motives  hitherto ;  now  we  must  come  to  extra- 
ordinary ones.  Holiness  is  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  things  in  hfe,  and  it  demands  the 
noblest  motives,  the  noblest  impulses,  or  none. 
Now  we  shall  see  how  God  has  satisfied  this 
demand  of  our  nature  for  an  extraordinary  mo- 
tive to  this  extraordinary  thing,  holiness  —  satis- 
fied it  so  completely,  that  the  soul,  when  it  finds 
it  out,  need  never  feel  unsatisfied  again.  God's 
motive  to  holiness  is,  ^^Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy.'" 

It  is  a  startling  thing  when  the  voice  of  God 
comes  close  to  us  and  whispers,  "  Be  ye  holy;" 
but  when  the  question  returns  from  our  Hps, 
*'  Why  should  we  be  holy  ?  "  it  is  a  more  solemn 
thing  to  get  this  answer,  "  For  I  am  holy."  This 
is  God's  motive  to  holiness —  "  For  I  am  holy."  Be 
ye  holy:  here  is  its  authority  —  its  Divine  obliga- 
tion.    For  I  am  holy:   here  is  its  Divine  motive. 

Be  ye  holy.  Think  of  the  greatness  of  the  ob- 
ligation. Long  ago,  when  we  began  the  Chris- 
tian life,  we  heard  a  voice,  "  Be  ye  holy."  Per- 
haps, as  we  have  seen,  it  was  an  infectious  voice, 
the  voice  of  a  friend.  Perhaps  it  was  an  inspiring 
voice,  the  voice  of  poetry  and  literature.  Perhaps 
it  was  a  warning  voice,  the  voice  of  the  law.  But 
it  was  not  a  commanding  voice  —  the  voice  of 
God.  And  the  reason  was,  perhaps,  that  we 
were  not  thinking  of  the  voice :  we  were  thinking 
of  the  holy.  We  had  caught  sight  of  a  new  and 
beautiful  object  —  something  which  seemed  full 
of  promise,  which   was   to   consecrate  even  the 


296  THE  WILL   OF   GOD 

common  hours  of  our  life.  The  religious  world 
seemed  bright  to  us  then,  and  the  books  and  the 
men  were  dear  that  would  help  us  to  reach  out 
our  hands  to  this.  It  was  something  new  that 
had  come  into  our  life  —  this  fascination  of  holi- 
ness. Had  we  been  asked  about  the  voice  which 
said,  "  Be  ye  holy,"  we  should  indeed  have  said  it 
was  God's.  But,  in  truth,  it  was  only  our  own 
voice,  which  had  caught  some  far-off  echoes  from 
our  reading,  or  our  thinking,  or  our  friends. 
There  was  no  authority  in  the  voice,  therefore, 
and  it  rested  with  our  own  poor  wills  whether  we 
should  grow  in  holiness  or  not.  Sometimes  our 
will  was  strong  and  true,  and  we  were  better  men 
and  women  then  than  ever  in  our  lives  before; 
but  there  were  intervals  when  we  lost  all  we  had 
gained,  when  we  hstened  to  another  voice,  "  Be 
ye  prosperous,"  or  "  Be  ye  happy,"  and  then  we 
lost  all  we  had  gained. 

But  with  the  Divine  obligation  before  us,  it  is 
no  longer  optional  that  we  should  be  holy.  We 
must  be  holy.  .  .  .  And  then  see  how  the  motive 
to  holiness  is  attached  to  the  obligation  to  holiness 
—  the  motive  for  holiness :  "  Foi'I am  holy."  The 
motive  accounts  for  the  obligation.  God's  one  de- 
sire for  the  whole  earth  is  that  it  should  be  holy  — 
just  because  He  is  holy.  And  the  best  He  can 
do  with  men  is  to  make  them  like  Himself.  The 
whole  earth  is  His,  and  he  would  have  it  all  in 
harmony  with  Him.  God  has  a  right  to  demand 
that  we  should  be  holy  —  that  every  one  should 


THE   WILL   OF   GOD  297 

be  holy,  and  everything  just,  because  He  Is  holy 
Himself.  To  take  even  the  lowest  ground,  we 
allow  no  ornaments  in  our  house  that  are  not 
lovely  and  pleasant  to  the  eye.  We  have  no 
business  to  cumber  God's  earth  with  ourselves  if 
we  are  not  holy  —  no  business  to  live  in  the  same 
world  with  Him.  We  are  an  offence  to  God  — 
discordant  notes  in  the  music  of  the  universe. 

But  God  lays  this  high  obhgation  upon  us  for 
our  own  sake.  For  this  we  were  made.  For 
this  we  were  born  in  a  Christian  land.  For  this 
strange  things  have  happened  in  our  lives  — 
strange  pieces  of  discipline  have  disturbed  its 
quiet  flow,  strange  troubles,  strange  providences, 
strange  chastenings.  There  is  no  other  explana- 
tion of  the  mystery  of  our  life  than  this,  —  that 
God  would  have  us  holy.  At  any  cost  God  will 
have  us  holy.  Whatever  else  we  may  be,  this  one 
thing  we  must  be.  This  is  the  will  of  God,  even 
your  sanctification.  It  is  not  necessary  that  we 
should  be  prosperous  or  famous,  or  happy.  But 
it  is  necessary  that  we  should  be  holy;  and  the 
deepest  moments  of  our  life  give  us  glimpses 
sometimes  of  a  more  tender  reason  still  why  God 
says,  "  Be  ye  holy  "  — for  our  own  sakcs  :  because 
it  would  be  hell  to  be  unholy. 

There  is  now  only  one  thing  wanting  in  our 
new  motive  to  holiness.  We  have  discovered  the 
sources  of  its  obligation  far  up  in  the  counsels  of 
God,  and  deep  down  in  the  weakness  of  our  own 
nature.     We  have  found  holiness  to  be  an  abso- 


298  THE  WILL   OF   GOD 

lutely  necessary  virtue  —  to  live  without  which  is 
to  contradict  our  Maker.  But  we  have  not  yet 
looked  at  its  quality.  The  thing  we  are  to  pursue 
so  ardently — what  is  it?  How  are  we  to  shape 
it  to  ourselves  when  we  think  of  it?  Is  there  any 
plain  definition  of  it  —  any  form  which  could  be 
easily  stated  and  easily  followed  ?  It  may  be  very 
easily  stated.  It  is  for  those  who  have  tried  it  to 
say  whether  it  be  easily  followed.  Be  ye  holy, 
as  He  is  holy.  As  He  is  holy,  as  He  who 
hath  called  you  is  holy,  so  be  ye  holy.  This  is 
the  form  of  holiness  we  are  asked  to  aim  at.  This 
is  the  standard.  God's  commentary  on  the  mo- 
tive "  As  He  ...  so  ye^^  Think  for  a  moment 
the  difference  between  these  pronouns.  He —  Ye. 
He  who  hath  called  you  —  Jesus  Christ.  He -who 
did  no  sin,  neither  was  guile  found  in  his  mouth. 
He  who  when  He  was  reviled,  reviled  not  again, 
when  He  suffered,  He  threatened  not.  He  who 
was  without  spot  or  blemish,  in  whom  even  His 
enemies  found  no  fault. 

Ye,  the  fallen  children  of  a  fallen  race.  Ye,  with 
hearts  deceitful  above  all  things,  and  desperately 
wicked.  Ye  are  to  become  as  He.  The  two  pro- 
nouns are  to  approach  one  another.  The  cruci- 
fiers  are  to  work  their  way  up  to  the  crucified. 
Ye  are  to  become  as  He.  There  is  a  motive  as 
high  as  the  holiness  of  God.  It  makes  us  feel  as 
if  we  had  our  life-work  before  us  still.  It  seems 
all  to  begin  as  yet.  We  have  scarcely  begun  even 
to  be  like  God  —  for  we  began  perhaps  with  no 


THE  WILL   OF   GOD  299 

higher  motive  than  to  be  like  some  one  else  —  not 
like  God  at  all.  But  the  little  betterness  that  we 
get  from  books ;  the  chance  impulses  that  come 
from  their  other  lives  have  never  fulfilled  in  us 
the  will  of  God  —  have  never  sanctified  their 
hearts  as  ours  —  could  never  sanctify  such  hearts 
—  make  ye  become  as  He. 

No  doubt  a  great  deal  of  human  good  is  pos- 
sible to  man  before  he  touch  the  character  of 
Christ.  High  human  motives  and  human  aims 
may  make  a  noble  human  life.  But  they  never 
make  a  holy  life.  A  holy  life  is  a  life  like  Christ's. 
And,  whatever  may  be  got  from  the  lower  motives 
to  a  better  life,  one  thing  must  necessarily  be  ab- 
sent from  them  all  —  the  life  like  Christ's,  or 
rather,  the  spirit  like  Christ's.  For  the  life  like 
Christ's  can  only  come  from  Christ ;  and  the  spirit 
of  Christ  can  only  be  caught  from  Christ. 

Hence,  therefore  (in  closing),  we  come  at  last 
to  the  profound  meaning  of  another  text  which 
stands  alone  in  the  Word  of  God  and  forms  the 
only  true  climax  to  such  a  subject  as  this. 

"  Lo  I  come  to  do  Thy  will,  O  God,"  the  author 
of  the  Hebrews  quotes  from  David,  and  goes  on 
to  add,  "  By  the  which  will  we  are  sanctified." 
Christ  came  to  do  God's  will,  by  the  which  will  we 
are  sanctified.  This  is  the  will  of  God,  even  your 
sanctification.  But  the  writer  of  the  Hebrews 
adds  another  lesson  :  "  By  the  which  will  we  are 
sanctified."  How?  "  Through  the  offering  of  the 
body  of  Jesus  Christ  once  for  all."     Our  sanctifi- 


30O  THE  WILL  OF   GOD 

cation  is  not  in  books,  or  in  noble  enthusiasm,  or 
in  personal  struggles  after  a  better  life.  It  is  in 
the  offering  of  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ  once  for 
all.  Justification  is  through  the  blood  of  Jesus 
Christ  once  for  all.  Sanctification  is  through  the 
body  of  Jesus  Christ  once  for  all.  It  is  not  a 
thing  to  be  generated,  but  to  be  received.  It  is 
not  to  be  generated  in  fragments  of  experience 
at  one  time  and  another  —  it  is  already  complete 
in  Christ.  We  have  only  to  put  on  Christ.  And 
though  it  may  take  a  lifetime  of  experience  to 
make  it  ours,  the  sanctification,  wliejiever  it  come, 
can  otily  come  from  Christ,  and  if  we  ever  Jiave 
sanctification  it  will  only  be  because,  and  inas- 
much as  we  have  Christ.  Our  sanctification  is 
not  what  morality  gives,  not  even  what  the  Bible 
gives,  not  even  what  Christ  gives,  —  it  is  what 
Christ  lives.     It  is  Christ  Himself. 

The  reason  why  we  resort  so  much  to  lower 
impulses  to  a  Christian  life  is  imperfect  union  to 
Christ.  We  take  our  doctrines  from  the  Bible 
and  our  assurance  from  Christ.  But  for  want  of 
the  living  bright  reality  of  His  presence  in  our 
hearts  we  search  the  world  all  round  for  im- 
pulses. We  search  religious  books  for  impulses, 
and  tracts  and  sermons,  but  in  vain.  They  are 
not  there.  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  begin- 
ning and  the  end.  Christ  is  all  and  in  all.  The 
beginning  of  all  things  is  in  the  will  of  God  — 
"  by  the  which  will."  The  end  of  all  things  is  in 
sanctification  through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.     "  By 


THE   WILL   OF   GOD  301 

the  which  will  ye  are  sanctified."  Between  these 
two  poles  all  spiritual  life  and  Christian  experience 
run.  And  no  motive  outside  Christ  can  lead  a 
man  to  Christ.  If  your  motive  to  holiness  is  not 
as  high  as  Christ  it  cannot  make  you  rise  to 
Christ.  For  water  cannot  rise  above  its  level. 
"  Beware,  therefore,  lest  any  man  spoil  you 
through  philosophy  and  vain  deceit,  after  the 
tradition  of  men,  after  the  rudiments  of  the 
world,  and  not  after  Christ.  For  in  Hint  dwell- 
eth  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily.  And 
ye  are  complete  in  Him,  which  is  the  head  of  all 
principality  and  power"  (2  Col.  viii.  10).  "Who 
of  God  is  made  unto  us  wisdom  and  righteous- 
ness, and  sanctijicatioft,  and  redemption"  (i  Cor. 
i.  30).  ("  As  ye  have  therefore  received  the  Lord 
Jesus,  so  walk  ye  iji  Hiin"^ 


NUMBER  XV 

How  to   Know   the 
Will   of  God 

^^  If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doc- 
trine, whether  it  be  of  God."  —  John  vii.  17. 

THERE  is  an  experience  which  becomes  more 
and  more  familiar  to  every  one  who  is  try- 
ing to  follow  Christ  —  a  feeling  of  the  growing 
loneliness  of  his  Christian  life.  It  comes  from 
a  sense  of  the  peculiarly  personal  interest  which 
Christ  takes  in  him,  which  sometimes  seems 
so  strong  as  almost  to  make  him  feel  that  his 
life  is  being  detached  from  all  the  other  lives 
around  him,  that  it  is  being  drawn  out  of  the 
crowd  of  humanity  as  if  an  unseen  arm  linked  in 
his  were  taking  him  aside  for  a  nearer  intimacy 
and  a  deeper  and  more  private  fellowship.  It  is 
not,  indeed,  that  the  great  family  of  God  are  to 
be  left  in  the  shade  for  him,  or  that  he  is  in  any 
way  the  favourite  of  heaven ;  but  the  sanctifying 
and,  in  the  truest  sense,  humbling  realization  that 
God  makes  Himself  as  real  to  each  poor  unit  as  if 
he  were  the  whole ;  so  that  even  as  in  coming  to 
Christ  at  first  he  felt  himself  the  only  lost,  so  now 


TO   KNOW  THE   WILL   OF   GOD     303 

in  staying  with  Christ  he  feels  himself  the  only 
found.  And  it  is,  perhaps,  true  that  without  any 
loss  in  the  feeling  of  saintly  communion  with 
all  those  throughout  the  world  who  say  "  Our 
Father  "  with  him  in  their  prayers,  the  more  he 
feels  that  Christ  has  all  of  him  to  Himself  the 
more  he  feels  that  he  has  Christ  all  to  himself. 
Christ  has  died  for  other  men,  but  in  a  peculiar 
sense  for  him.  God  has  a  love  for  all  the  world, 
but  a  peculiar  love  for  him.  God  has  an  interest 
in  all  the  world,  but  a  peculiar  interest  in  him. 
This  is  always  the  instinct  of  a  near  fellowship, 
and  it  is  true  of  the  universal  fellowship  of  God 
with  His  own  people. 

But  if  there  is  one  thing  more  than  another 
which  is  more  personal  to  the  Christian  —  more 
singularly  his  than  God's  love  or  God's  interest 
—  one  thing  which  is  a  finer  symbol  of  God's 
love  and  interest,  it  is  the  knowledge  of  God's 
will  —  the  private  knowledge  of  God's  will. 
And  it  is  more  personal,  just  inasmuch  as  it  is 
more  private.  My  private  portion  of  God's  love 
is  only  a  private  share  in  God's  love  —  only  a 
part  —  the  same  in  quality  and  kind  as  all  the 
rest  of  God's  love,  as  all  the  others  get  from 
God.  But  God's  will  is  a  thing  for  myself. 
There  is  a  will  of  God  for  me  which  is  willed 
for  no  one  else  besides.  It  is  not  a  sJiare  in  the 
universal  will,  in  the  same  sense  as  I  have  a 
share  in  the  universal  love.  It  is  a  particular 
will  >for  me,  different  from  the  will  He  has  for 


304    TO   KNOW  THE   WILL   OF   GOD 

any  one  else  —  a  private  will  —  a  will  which  no 
one  else  knows  about,  which  no  one  can  know 
about,  but  me. 

To  be  sure,  as  we  have  seen  before,  God  had 
likewise  a  universal  will  for  me  and  every  man. 
But  this  is  more  than  that.  In  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments, in  conscience,  in  the  beatitudes  of 
Christ,  God  tells  all  the  world  His  will.  There 
is  no  secret  about  this  part,  it  is  as  universal  as 
His  love.  It  is  the  will  on  which  the  character 
of  every  man  is  to  be  formed  and  conformed  to 
God's. 

But  there  is  a  will  for  career  as  well  as  for 
character.  There  is  a  will  ior  where — in  what 
place,  viz.,  in  this  town  or  another  town  —  I  am 
to  become  like  God  as  well  as  that  I  am  to  be- 
come like  God.  There  is  a  will  for  where  I  am 
to  be,  and  what  I  am  to  be,  and  what  I  am  to  do 
to-morrow.  There  is  a  will  for  what  scheme  I 
am  to  take  up,  and  what  work  I  am  to  do  for 
Christ,  and  what  business  arrangements  to  make, 
and  what  money  to  give  away.  This  is  God's 
private  will  for  me,  for  every  step  I  take,  for 
the  path  of  life  along  which  He  points  my  way, 
—  God's  will  for  my  career. 

If  I  have  God's  will  in  my  character,  my  life 
may  become  great  and  good.  It  may  be  useful 
and  honourable,  and  even  a  monument  of  the 
sanctifying  power  of  God.  But  it  will  only  be 
a  life.  However  great  and  pure  it  be,  it  can 
be  no  more  than  a  life.     And  it  ought  to  be  a 


TO   KNOW  THE   WILL  OF   GOD     305 

mission.  There  should  be  no  such  thing  as  a 
Christian  life,  each  life  should  be  a  mission. 

God  has  a  life-plan  for  every  human  life.  In 
the  eternal  counsels  of  His  will,  when  He  arranged 
the  destiny  of  every  star,  and  every  sand-grain 
and  grass-blade,  and  each  of  those  tiny  insects 
which  live  but  for  an  hour,  the  Creator  had  a 
thought  for  you  and  me.  Our  life  was  to  be  the 
slow  unfolding  of  this  thought,  as  the  corn-stalk 
from  the  corn,  or  the  flower  from  the  gradually 
opening  bud.  It  was  a  thought  of  what  we  were 
to  be,  of  what  we  might  become,  of  what  He 
would  have  us  do  with  our  days  and  years,  or 
influence  with  our  lives.  But  we  all  had  the  ter- 
rible power  to  evade  this  thought,  and  shape  our 
lives  from  another  thought,  from  another  will,  if 
we  chose.  The  bud  could  only  become  a  flower, 
and  the  star  revolve  in  the  orbit  God  had  fixed. 
But  it  was  man's  prerogative  to  choose  his  path, 
his  duty  to  choose  it  in  God.  But  the  Divine 
right  to  choose  at  all  has  always  seemed  more  to 
him  than  his  duty  to  choose  in  God,  so,  for  the 
most  part,  he  has  taken  his  Xxi^from  God,  and  cut 
his  career  from  himself. 

It  comes  to  pass,  therefore,  that  there  are  two 
great  classes  of  people  in  the  Christian  world 
to-day.  (i)  Those  who  have  God's  will  in  their 
character ;  (2)  Those  who  have  God's  will  like- 
wise in  their  career.  The  first  are  in  the  world 
to  live.  They  have  a  life.  The  second  are  in 
the  world  to  minister.     They  have  a  mission. 


3o6    TO   KNOW  THE   WILL   OF   GOD 

Now  those  who  belong  to  the  first  class,  those 
who  are  simply  living  in  the  world  and  growing 
character,  however  finely  they  may  be  develop- 
ing their  character,  cannot  understand  too  plainly 
that  they  are  not  fulfilling  God's  will.  They  are 
really  outside  a  great  part  of  God's  will  alto- 
gether. They  understand  the  universal  part,  they 
are  moulded  by  it,  and  their  lives  as  lives  are  in 
some  sense  noble  and  true.  But  they  miss  the 
private  part,  the  secret  whispering  of  God  in  the 
ear,  the  constant  message  from  earth  to  heaven. 
"  Lord,  what  wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do?  "  They 
never  have  the  secret  joy  of  asking  a  question 
like  this,  the  wonderful  sense  in  asking  it,  of  be- 
ing in  the  counsels  of  God,  the  overpowering 
thought  that  God  has  taken  notice  of  you,  and 
your  question  —  that  He  will  let  you  do  some- 
thing, something  peculiar,  personal,  private,  which 
no  one  else  has  been  given  to  do  —  this  which 
gives  life  for  God  its  true  sublimity,  and  makes  a 
perpetual  sacrament  of  all  its  common  things. 
Life  to  them  is  at  the  best  a  bare  and  selfish 
thing,  for  the  truest  springs  of  action  are  never 
moved  at  all,  and  the  strangest  thing  in  human 
history,  the  bounding  of  the  career  from  step  to 
step,  from  circumstance  to  circumstance,  from 
tragedy  to  tragedy,  is  unexplained  and  unrelated, 
and  hangs,  a  perpetual  mystery,  over  life. 

The  great  reason  possibly  why  so  few  have 
thought  of  taking  God  into  their  career  is  that 
so  few  have  really  taken  God  into  their  life.     No 


TO   KNOW  THE   WILL   OF   GOD     307 

one  ever  thinks  of  having  God  in  his  career,  or 
need  think,  until  his  Hfe  is  fully  moulded  into 
God's.  And  no  one  will  succeed  in  knowing  even 
what  God  in  his  career  can  mean  till  he  know 
what  it  is  to  have  God  in  the  secret  chambers  of 
his  heart.  It  requires  a  well-kept  life  to  know  the 
will  of  God,  and  none  but  the  Christlike  in  char- 
acter can  know  the  Christlike  in  career. 

It  has  happened,  therefore,  that  the  very  fact 
of  God's  guidance  in  the  individual  life  has  been 
denied.  It  is  said  to  give  hfe  an  importance  quite 
foreign  to  the  Divine  intention  in  making  man. 
One  life,  it  is  argued,  is  of  no  more  importance 
than  any  other  life,  and  to  talk  of  special  provi- 
dences happening  every  hour  of  every  day  is  to 
detract  from  the  majesty  and  dignity  of  God,  that, 
in  fact,  it  reduces  a  religious  life  to  a  mere  reli- 
gious caprice,  and  the  thought  that  God's  will  is 
being  done  to  a  hallucination  of  the  mind. 

And  there  is  another  side  to  the  objection, 
which  though  less  pronounced  and  definite,  subtly 
dangerous  still  —  that  there  does  indeed  seem  to 
be  some  warrant  in  Scripture  for  getting  to  know 
the  will  of  God;  but  that,  in  the  first  place,  tJiat 
probably  means  only  on  great  occasions  which 
come  once  or  twice  in  a  lifetime ;  and,  in  the 
second,  that  the  whole  subject  is  so  obscure  that, 
all  things  considered,  a  man  had  better  walk  by 
his  own  common  sense,  and  leave  such  mysteries 
alone. 

But  the  Christian  cannot  allow  the  question  to 


3o8    TO  KNOW  THE  WILL  OF  GOD 

be  put  off  with  poor  evasions  like  these.  Every 
day,  indeed,  and  many  times  a  day,  the  question 
rises  in  a  hundred  practical  forms.  "  What  is 
the  will  of  God  for  me?"  What  is  the  will  of 
God  for  me  to-day,  just  now,  for  the  next  step, 
for  this  arrangement  and  for  that,  and  this  amuse- 
ment, and  this  projected  work  for  Christ?  For 
all  these  he  feels  he  must  consult  the  will  of  God, 
and  that  God  has  a  will  for  him  in  all  such  things, 
and  that  it  must  be  possible  somehow  to  know 
what  that  will  is,  is  not  only  a  matter  of  hope, 
but  a  point  in  his  doctrine  and  creed. 

But  in  order  to  vindicate  the  reasojiahlcness  of 
such  expectations  as  these,  it  may  simply  be 
affirmed  as  a  matter  of  fact  that  there  are  a  num- 
ber of  instruments  for  finding  out  the  will  of  God. 
One  of  them  is  a  very  great  instrument,  so  far 
surpassing  all  the  rest  in  accuracy  that  there  may 
be  said  to  be  but  one  which  has  never  been 
known  to  fail.  The  others  are  smaller  and  clum- 
sier, much  less  delicate,  indeed,  and  often  fail. 
They  often  fail  to  come  within  sight  of  the  will  of 
God  at  all,  and  are  so  far  astray  at  other  times  as 
to  mistake  some  other  thing  for  it.  Still  they 
are  instruments,  and  notwithstanding  their  defects, 
have  a  value  by  themselves,  and  when  the  greater 
instrument  employs  their  humbler  powers  to  sec- 
ond its  attempts,  immediately  become  as  keen 
and  as  unerring  as  itself. 

The  most  important  of  these  minor  instruments 
is  Reason,  and  although  it  is  a  minor  instrument, 


TO   KNOW  THE  WILL  OF   GOD     309 

it  is  great  enough  in  many  a  case  to  reveal  the 
secret  will  of  God.  God  is  taking  your  life  and 
character  through  a  certain  process,  for  example. 
He  is  running  your  career  along  a  certain  chain  of 
events.  And  sometimes  the  light  which  He  is 
showing  you  stops,  and  you  have  to  pick  your 
way  for  a  few  steps  by  the  dimmer  light  of 
thought.  But  it  is  God's  will  for  you  then  to  use 
this  thought,  and  to  elevate  it  through  regions  of 
consecration,  into  faith,  and  to  walk  by  this  light 
till  the  clearer  beam  from  His  will  comes  back 
again. 

Another  of  these  instruments  is  experience. 
There  are  many  paths  in  life  which  we  all  tread 
more  than  once.  God's  light  was  by  us  when  we 
walked  them  first,  and  lit  a  beacon  here  and  there 
along  the  way.  But  the  next  time  He  sent 
our  lines  along  that  path  He  knew  the  side- 
lights should  be  burning  still,  and  let  us  walk 
alone. 

And  then  there  is  circumstance.  God  closes 
things  in  around  us  till  our  alternatives  are  all 
reduced  to  one.  That  one,  if  we  must  act,  is 
probably  the  will  of  God  just  then. 

And  then  there  is  the  advice  of  others  ■ —  an 
important  element  at  least  —  and  the  welfare  of 
others,  and  the  example  to  others,  and  the  many 
other  facts  and  principles  which  make  up  the 
moral  man,  which,  if  not  strong  enough  always 
to  discover  what  God's  will  is,  are  not  too  feeble 
oftentimes  to  determine  what  it  is  not. 


3IO    TO   KNOW  THE  WILL   OF   GOD 

Even  the  best  of  these  instruments,  however, 
has  but  little  power  in  its  own  hands.  The  ulti- 
mate appeal  is  always  to  the  one  great  Instrument, 
which  uses  them  in  turn  as  it  requires,  and  which 
supplements  their  discoveries,  or  even  supplants 
them  if  it  choose  by  its  own  superior  light,  and 
might,  and  right.  It  is  like  some  great  glass  that 
can  sweep  the  skies  in  the  darkest  night,  and  trace 
the  motions  of  the  furthest  stars,  while  all  the  rest 
can  but  see  a  faint  uncertain  light  piercing  for 
a  moment  here  and  there  the  clouds  which  lie 
between. 

And  this  great  instrument  for  finding  out  God's 
will,  this  instrument  which  can  penetrate  where 
reason  cannot  go,  where  observation  has  not  been 
before,  and  memory  is  helpless,  and  the  guiding 
hand  of  circumstance  has  failed,  has  a  name 
which  is  seldom  associated  with  any  end  so  great, 
a  name  which  every  child  may  understand,  even 
as  the  stupendous  instrument  itself  with  all  its 
mighty  powers  is  sometimes  moved  by  infant 
hands  when  others  have  tried  in  vain. 

The  name  of  the  instrument  is  obedience.  Obe- 
dience, as  it  is  sometimes  expressed,  is  the  organ 
of  spiritual  knowledge.  As  the  eye  is  the  organ 
of  physical  sight ;  the  mind,  of  intellectual  sight ; 
so  the  organ  of  spiritual  vision  is  this  strange 
power,  obedience. 

This  is  one  of  the  great  discoveries  the  Bible 
has  made  to  the  world.  It  is  purely  a  Bible 
thought.     Philosophy  never  conceived  a  truth  so 


TO   KNOW  THE   WILL   OF  GOD     311 

simple  and  yet  so  sublime.  And,  although  it 
was  known  in  Old  Testament  times,  and  ex- 
pressed in  Old  Testament  books,  it  was  reserved 
for  Jesus  Christ  to  make  the  full  discovery  to 
the  world,  and  add  to  His  teaching  another  of 
the  profoundest  truths  which  have  come  from 
heaven  to  earth  —  that  the  mysteries  of  the 
Father's  will  are  hid  in  this  word  "  obey." 

The  circumstances  in  which  Christ  made  the 
great  discovery  to  the  world  are  known  to  every 
one. 

The  Feast  of  Tabernacles  was  in  progress  in 
Jerusalem  when  Jesus  entered  the  temple  to 
teach.  A  circle  of  Jews  were  gathered  round 
Him  who  seem  to  have  been  spell-bound  with  the 
extraordinary  wisdom  of  His  words.  He  made 
no  pretension  to  be  a  scholar.  He  was  no  grad- 
uate of  the  Rabbinical  schools.  He  had  no  ac- 
cess to  the  sacred  literature  of  the  people.  Yet 
here  was  this  stranger  from  Nazareth  confound- 
ing the  wisest  heads  in  Jerusalem,  and  unfolding 
with  calm  and  effortless  skill  such  truths  as  even 
these  temple  walls  had  never  heard  before. 
Then  "  the  Jews  marvelled,  saying,  *  How  know- 
eth  this  man  letters,  never  having  learned?'" 
What  organ  of  spiritual  knowledge  can  He  have, 
never  having  learned  ?  Never  having  learned — 
they  did  not  know  that  Christ  had  learned. 
They  did  not  know  the  school  at  Nazareth  whose 
teacher  was  in  heaven  —  whose  schoolroom  was  a 
carpenter's  shop  —  the  lesson,  the  Father's  will. 


312     TO   KNOW  THE   WILL   OF   GOD 

They  knew  not  that  hidden  truths  could  come 
from  God,  or  wisdom  from  above. 

What  came  to  them  was  gathered  from  human 
books,  or  caught  from  human  Hps.  They  knew 
no  organ  save  the  mind  ;  no  instrument  of  know- 
ing the  things  of  heaven  but  that  by  which  they 
learned  in  the  schools.  But  Jesus  pointed  to  a 
spiritual  world  which  lay  still  far  beyond,  and 
tells  them  of  the  spiritual  eye  which  reads  its 
profounder  secrets  and  reveals  the  mysteries  of 
God.  "My  doctrine  is  not  Mine,"  He  says,  "  but 
His  that  sent  Me  "  ;  and  "  My  judgment  is  just," 
as  He  taught  before,  "  because  I  seek  not  Mine 
own  will,  but  the  will  of  the  Father  which  hath 
sent  Me."  And  then,  lest  men  should  think  this 
great  experience  was  never  meant  for  them.  He 
applies  His  principles  to  every  human  mind 
which  seeks  to  know  God's  will.  "  If  any  man 
will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine, 
whether  it  be  of  God." 

The  word  doctrine  here  is  not  to  be  taken  in 
our  sense  of  the  word  doctrine.  It  is  not  the 
doctrine  of  theology.  "  Any  man  "  is  to  know  if 
he  will  do  His  will.  But  it  is  God's  teaching  — 
God's  mind.  If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he 
shall  know  God's  mind ;  he  shall  know  God's 
teaching  and  God's  will. 

In  this  sense,  or  indeed  in  the  literal  sense, 
from  the  first  look  at  these  words  it  appears 
almost  as  if  a  contradiction  were  involved.  To 
know  God's  will,  it  is  as  much  as  to  say,  Do  God's 


TO   KNOW  THE  WILL  OF  GOD     313 

will.  But  how  are  we  to  do  God's  will  until  we 
know  it?  To  know  it;  that  is  the  very  dilemma 
we  are  in.  And  it  seems  no  way  out  of  it  to  say, 
Do  it  and  you  shall  know  it.  We  want  to  know 
it,  in  order  to  do  it;  and  now  we  are  told  to  do 
it,  in  order  to  know  it !  If  any  man  do,  he  shall 
know. 

But  that  is  not  the  meaning  of  the  words. 
That  is  not  even  the  words  themselves.  It  is  not, 
If  any  man  do,  he  shall  know;  but  if  any  man 
will  do.  And  the  whole  sense  of  the  passage 
turns  upon  that  word  will.  It  means,  "  If  any 
man  is  willing  to  do,  he  shall  know."  He  does 
not  need  to  do  His  will  in  order  to  know,  he  only 
need  be  willing  to  do  it.  For  "  will  "  is  not  at 
all  the  sign  of  the  future  tense  as  it  looks.  It  is 
not  connected  with  the  word  do  at  all,  but  a  sep- 
arate verb  altogether,  meaning  "  is  willing,"  or 
"  wills."  If  any  man  wills,  or  if  any  man  is  will- 
ing, to  do,  he  shall  know. 

Now  notice  the  difference  this  makes  in  the 
problem.  Before,  it  looked  as  if  the  doing  were 
to  come  first  and  then  the  knowing  His  will ;  but 
now  another  element  is  thrown  in  at  the  very  be- 
ginning. The  being  willing  comes  first  and  then 
the  knowing ;  and  thereafter  the  doing  may  fol- 
low—  the  doing,  that  is  to  say,  if  the  will  has 
been  sufficiently  clear  to  proceed. 

The  whole  stress  of  the  passage  therefore  turns 
on  this  word  will.  And  Christ's  answer  to  the 
question,  How  to  know  the  will  of  God?  may  be 


314    TO   KNOW  THE  WILL  OF   GOD 

simply  stated  thus :  "  If  any  man  is  willing  to  do 
God's  will  he  shall  know,"  or,  in  plainer  language 
still,  "  If  any  man  is  sincerely  trying  to  do  God's 
will,  he  shall  know." 

The  connection  of  all  this  with  obedience  is 
just  that  being  willing  is  the  highest  form  of 
obedience.  It  is  the  spirit  and  essence  of  obedi- 
ence. There  is  an  obedience  in  the  world  which 
is  no  obedience,  because  the  act  of  obedience  is 
there,  but  the  spirit  of  submission  is  not. 

"  A  certain  man,"  we  read  in  the  Bible,  "  had 
two  sons;  and  he  came  to  the  first,  and  said, 
•  Son,  go  work  to-day  in  my  vineyard.'  He  an- 
swered, 'I  will  not':  but  afterward  he  repented  and 
went.  And  he  came  to  the  second,  and  said  like- 
wise. And  he  answered,  '  I  go,  sir ' :  and  went  not. 
Whether  of  them  twain  did  the  will  of  his  father?" 
Obedience  here  comes  out  in  its  true  colours  as  a 
thing  in  the  will.  And  if  any  man  have  an  obey- 
ing will,  a  truly  single  and  submissive  will,  he 
shall  know  of  the  teaching,  or  of  the  leading, 
whether  it  be  of  God, 

If  we  were  to  carry  out  this  principle  into  a 
practical  case,  it  might  be  found  to  work  in  some 
such  way  as  this.  To-morrow,  let  us  say,  there  is 
some  difficulty  before  us  in  our  path.  It  lies 
across  the  very  threshold  of  our  life,  and  we  can- 
not begin  the  working  week  without,  at  least, 
some  notice  that  it  is  there.  It  may  be  some 
trifling  item  of  business  life,  over  which  unac- 
countable suspicions   have  begun   to  gather    of 


TO  KNOW  THE   WILL   OF   GOD     315 

late,  and  force  themselves  in  spite  of  everything 
into  thought  and  conscience,  and  even  into  prayer. 
Or,  it  may  be,  some  change  of  circumstance  is 
opening  up,  and  alternatives  appearing,  and  de- 
manding choice  of  one.  Perhaps  it  is  some  prac- 
tice in  our  life,  which  the  clearing  of  the  spiritual 
atmosphere  and  increasing  light  from  God  is 
hinting  to  be  wrong,  while  reason  cannot  coin- 
cide exactly  and  condemn.  At  all  events  there 
is  something  on  the  mind  —  something  to  do, 
to  suffer,  to  renounce  —  and  these  are  alterna- 
tive on  the  mind  to  distinguish,  to  choose  from, 
to  reject.  Suppose,  indeed,  we  made  this  case  a 
personal  as  well  as  an  illustrative  thing,  and  in 
view  of  the  solemn  ordinance  to  which  we  are 
shortly  called,  we  ran  the  lines  of  our  self-exam- 
ination along  it  as  we  proceed  —  the  question 
rises,  How  are  we  to  separate  God's  light  on  the 
point  from  our  own,  disentangle  our  thoughts  on 
the  point  from  His,  and  be  sure  we  are  following 
His  will,  not  the  reflected  image  of  ours? 

The  first  process  towards  this  discovery  natur- 
ally would  be  one  of  outlook.  Naturally  we  would 
set  to  work  by  collecting  all  the  possible  materials 
for  decision  from  every  point  of  the  compass, 
balancing  the  one  consequence  against  the  other, 
then  summing  up  the  points  in  favour  of  each  by 
itself,  until  we  chose  the  one  which  emerged  at 
last  with  most  of  reason  on  its  side.  But  this 
would  only  be  the  natural  man's  way  out  of  the 
dilemma.     The  spiritual  man  would  go  about  it 


3i6    TO   KNOW  THE   WILL   OF   GOD 

in  another  way.  This  way,  he  would  argue,  has 
no  religion  in  it  at  all,  except  perhaps  the  ac- 
knowledgment that  reason  is  divine ;  and  though 
it  might  be  quite  possible  and  even  probable  that 
the  light  should  come  to  him  through  the  medium 
of  reason,  yet  he  would  reach  his  conclusion,  and 
likely  enough  a  different  conclusion,  quite  from 
another  side. 

And  his  conclusion  would  likewise  be  a  better 
and  sounder  conclusion,  for  the  insight  of  the 
non-religious  method  would  be  impaired,  and  the 
real  organ  of  knowing  God's  will  so  out  of  order 
from  disuse,  that  even  reason  would  be  biassed  in 
its  choice.  A  heart  not  quite  subdued  to  God  is 
an  imperfect  element,  in  which  His  will  can  never 
live;  and  the  intellect  which  belongs  to  such  a 
heart  is  an  imperfect  instrument  and  cannot  find 
God's  will  unerringly —  for  God's  will  is  found  in 
regions  which  obedience  only  can  explore. 

Accordingly,  he  would  go  to  work  from  the 
opposite  side  from  the  first.  He  would  begin  not 
in  out-look,  but  in  in-look.  He  would  not  give 
his  mind  to  observation.  He  would  devote  his 
soul  to  self-examination,  to  self-examination  of  the 
most  solemn  and  searching  kind.  For  this  prin- 
ciple of  Christ  is  no  concession  to  an  easy  life,  or 
a  careless  method  of  rounding  a  difficult  point. 
It  is  a  summons  rather  to  learn  the  highest  and 
most  sacred  thing  in  Heaven,  by  bracing  the  heart 
to  the  loftiest  and  severest  sacrifice  on  earth  — 
the   bending  of  an  unwilling  human  will  till  it 


TO  KNOW  THE  WILL  OF  GOD     317 

breaks  in  the  will  of  God.  It  means  that  the  heart 
must  be  watched  with  a  jealous  care,  and  most 
solemnly  kept  for  God.  It  means  that  the  hidden 
desires  must  be  taken  out  one  by  one  and  regen- 
erated by  Christ  —  that  the  faintest  inclination  of 
the  soul  when  touched  by  the  spirit  of  God,  be 
prepared  to  assume  the  strength  of  will  and  act 
at  any  cost.  It  means  that  nothing  in  life  should 
be  dreaded  so  much  as  that  the  soul  should  ever 
lose  its  sensitiveness  to  God;  that  God  should 
ever  speak  and  find  the  ear  just  dull  enough  to 
miss  what  He  has  said;  that  God  should  have 
some  active  will  for  some  human  will  to  do,  and 
our  heart  not  the  first  in  the  world  to  be  ready  to 
obey. 

When  we  have  attained  to  this  by  meditation, 
by  self-examination,  by  commemoration,  and  by 
the  Holy  Spirit's  power,  we  may  be  ready  to  make 
it  our  daily  prayer,  that  we  may  know  God's  will; 
and  when  the  heart  is  prepared  like  this,  and  the 
wayward  will  is  drilled  in  sacrifice  and  patience  to 
surrender  all  to  God,  God's  will  may  come  out 
in  our  career  at  every  turning  of  our  life,  and  be 
ours  not  only  in  sacramental  aspiration  but  in  act. 

To  search  for  God's  will  with  such  an  instru- 
ment is  scarce  to  search  at  all.  God's  will  lies 
transparently  in  view  at  every  winding  of  the 
path;  and  if  perplexity  sometimes  comes,  in  such 
way  as  has  been  supposed  the  mind  will  gather 
the  phenomena  into  the  field  of  vision,  as  care- 
fully, as  fully,  as  laboriously,  as  if  no  light  would 


318     TO   KNOW  THE   WILL  OF   GOD 

come  at  all,  and  then  stand  still  and  wait  till  the 
wonderful  discerning  faculty  of  the  soul,  that  eye 
which  beams  in  the  undivided  heart  and  looks 
right  out  to  God  from  every  willing  mind  fixes 
its  gaze  on  one  far  distant  spot,  one  spot  perhaps 
which  is  dark  to  all  the  world  besides,  where  all 
the  lights  are  focussed  in  God's  will. 

How  this  finite  and  this  infinite  are  brought  to 
touch,  how  this  invisible  will  of  God  is  brought 
to  the  temporal  heart  must  even  remain  unknown. 
The  mysterious  meeting-place  in  the  prepared  and 
willing  heart  between  the  human  and  divine  — 
where,  precisely,  the  will  is  finally  moved  into 
line  with  God's  —  of  these  things  knoweth  no  man 
save  only  the  Spirit  of  God. 

The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth.  "  We  hear 
the  sound  thereof,  but  cannot  tell  whence  it  cometh 
or  whither  it  goeth."  When  every  passion  is 
annihilated,  and  no  thought  moves  in  the  mind, 
and  all  the  faculties  are  still  and  waiting  for  God, 
the  spiritual  eye  may  trace,  perhaps,  some  delicate 
motion  in  the  soul,  some  thought  which  stirs  like 
a  leaf  in  the  unseen  air  and  tells  that  God  is  there. 
It  is  not  the  stillness,  nor  the  unseen  breath,  nor 
the  thought  that  only  stirred,  but  these  three 
mysteries  in  one  which  reveal  God's  will  to  me. 
God's  light  it  is  true  does  not  supersede,  but 
illuminate  our  thoughts.  Only  when  God  sends 
an  angel  to  trouble  the  pool  let  us  have  faith  for 
the  angel's  hand,  and  believe  that  some  power  of 
Heaven  has  stirred  the  waters  in  our  soul. 


TO   KNOW  THE  WILL  OF   GOD     319 

Let  us  but  get  our  hearts  in  position  for  know- 
ing the  will  of  God  —  only,  let  us  be  willing  to 
know  God's  will  in  our  hearts  that  we  may  do 
God's  will  in  our  lives,  and  we  shall  raise  no 
questions  as  to  how  this  will  may  come  and  feel 
no  fears  in  case  the  heavenly  light  should  go. 

But  let  it  be  remembered,  as  already  said,  that 
it  requires  a  well-kept  life  to  will  to  do  this  will. 
It  requires  a  well-kept  life  to  do  the  will  of  God, 
and  even  a  better  kept  life  to  will  to  do  His  will. 
To  be  willing  is  a  rarer  grace  than  to  be  doing 
the  will  of  God.  For  he  who  is  willing  may  some- 
times have  nothing  to  do,  and  must  only  be  will- 
ing to  wait :  and  it  is  easier  far  to  be  doing  God's 
will  than  to  be  willing  to  have  notJmig  to  do  —  it 
is  easier  far  to  be  working  for  Christ  than  it  is  to  be 
willing  to  cease.  No,  there  is  nothing  rarer  in  the 
world  to-day  than  the  truly  willing  soul,  and  there 
is  nothing  more  worth  coveting  than  the  will  to 
will  God's  will.  There  is  no  grander  possession 
for  any  Christian  life  than  the  transparently  simple 
mechanism  of  a  sincerely  obeying  heart.  And  if 
we  could  keep  the  machinery  clear,  there  would 
be  lives  in  thousands  doing  God's  will  on  earth 
even  as  it  is  done  in  Heaven.  There  would  be 
God  in  many  a  man's  career  whose  soul  is  allowed 
to  drift  —  a  useless  thing  to  God  and  the  world  — 
with  every  changing  wind  of  life,  and  many  a 
noble  Christian  character  rescued  from  wasting 
all  its  virtues  on  itself  and  saved  for  work  for 
Christ. 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Libraries 


012  01290  6089 
320    TO  KNOW  THE  WILL  OF   GOD 

And  when  the  time  of  trial  would  come,  and 
all  in  earth  and  heaven  was  dark  and  even  God's 
love  seemed  dim :  what  is  there  ever  left  to  cling 
to  but  this  will  of  the  willing  heart,  a  God-given, 
God-ward  bending  will,  which  says  amidst  the 
most  solemn  and  perplexing  vicissitudes  of  life, 

"  Father,  I  know  that  all  my  life, 

Is  portioned  out  by  Thee, 
And  the  changes  that  are  sure  to  come 

I  do  not  fear  to  see : 
But  I  ask  Thee  for  a  present  mind, 

Intent  on  pleasing  Thee." 


